


Insert Something Shakespearean Here

by katrinajg



Series: That Kid from Vault 101 [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Deacon is the Lone Wanderer, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, also jokes, and he has issues, and lies, pre-Fallout 4, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:32:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 456,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinajg/pseuds/katrinajg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 'The Outcast Incident’ of 2279, The Lone Wanderer disappears. Some people believe he died, some think he went on to ‘fight the good fight’ somewhere else, others still, wonder if The Lone Wanderer ever existed at all. Like most things, the truth is somewhere in between.</p><p>When Deacon arrives in the Commonwealth in 2282, he firmly believes he's given up his mantle of 'The Lone Wanderer' and wants nothing to do with his old life. He's content to lend his aid to The Railroad and through them, the people of the 'Wealth. However, as the years draw closer and closer to that fateful 2287 and the turmoil of the Commonwealth becomes impossible to avoid, Deacon will reluctantly realize that The Lone Wanderer isn't a <em>piece</em> of himself that he can shove in a box and ignore. </p><p>It's who he <em>is</em>; above all else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of the People, For the People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He reads much;_   
>  _he is a great observer, and he looks_   
>  _quite through the deeds of men._
> 
>  
> 
> _-Julius Caesar (1.2.209)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edit,** November 5, 2017: Thanks to the fantastic [Saereneth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Saereneth/pseuds/Saereneth) this chapter has been edited and improved. YAY!

Long before Nora wakes from her cryogenic slumber, Deacon spends time in Vault 111.

Not often, and only when the weight of The Railroad's inevitable fuck-ups press so heavily on his soul that he needs the comforting closeness of life underground. He craves it in a way that isn’t healthy or even sane, but he’s unable to deny it all the same. He’s read enough tragedies, seen enough first hand, to know that the old adage of ‘you can never go home’ is old for a reason. He still tries, though. Always has. If Amata were still alive, she’d attest to it.

Politely, of course.

Ironic that Vault-Tec’s slogan of _‘We’ll be there!’_ is actually true in his case. Despite the weakness he feels for needing the particular brand of safety found in underground vaults, he counts the fact that he finds their silence comforting a personal victory. He knows that Vault-Tec never really intended for their vaults to provide safety or comfort for anyone.

The first time he sees the number 111, Deacon does a double take.

He’s in the ruins of the C.I.T., checking on Courser sightings. He has only just become a full-fledged agent, and he knows The Railroad doesn’t trust him. Can’t trust him because of the pathological way he lies, but that’s the way he wants it. Better that way. The Lone Wanderer would have had them all wrapped around his finger, would have been their leader by now with plans to take the fight directly to The Institute, but he doesn’t want to be that person anymore. It’s why he changed his face and took Deacon as his code name—though he’ll admit, it was almost 'Daring' in honour of Dashwood.

He still jokes, though, because he can’t give that up. Still Vault 101’s class clown inside and out, even if the outlook’s different these days. And he’s still a charmer because that’s useful and powerful. The lying is new, though, and surprisingly easy. His dad would be appalled.

There aren’t any Coursers to be seen at C.I.T.; there never are. They prefer to materialize out of the night, slaughter a couple dozen people, and disappear just as fast. Lots of Gen 1s though, so he has to be careful. They fall to bullets, or in his case plasma shots, easily enough, but Deacon prefers stealthy close-quarters fighting. Unfortunately, androids—synths, he reminds himself sharply, don’t fall to a stab to their artificial kidneys or a slit throat.

So that the mission isn’t a complete waste of his time, Deacon hacks all the terminals he can find, looking for any information or even an interesting journal entry. Most people overlook the knowledge terminals hide. There is a deplorable dearth of people who are even literate in the Wastes. To this day it shocks him—he still remembers the way he made fun of Moira for all her crudely drawn pictures in that very first edition of the _‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’_ and the way that she cheerfully informed him (she was always cheerful, and he hopes she still is) their target audience was largely illiterate.

The terminals at C.I.T. are mostly wiped clean, but there is one, tucked away in a laboratory, that lists the vault numbers and locations in the Commonwealth. Obviously, it’s not important enough to The Institute for them to bother wiping, or maybe they just consider it irrelevant. The vaults are likely all empty, anyways; experiments have long since claimed the population. He stares at the number for a long time. A wave of grief and pain sweep over him with a strength he hasn’t felt since he gave up the face of ‘That Kid from Vault 101.’

Deacon travels to Vault 111 the next day. He’s supposed to check in at Ticonderoga. He’s supposed to give a report and get a new assignment from High Rise, but that vault is a siren’s call he can’t ignore. He arrives in a small village, named Sanctuary Hills, late at night, because he refused to make camp and delay his arrival.

The need to be underground and away from the openness of the Wasteland constantly itches under his skin (you can take the kid out of the vault, but you can’t take the vault out of the kid) and since joining The Railroad a few scant months ago, it’s increased tenfold. Makes him rub his arms and clench his fists in a desperate attempt to hold it in. He knows their paranoia is justified (Deacon’s already walked through the remains of two safehouses to get a visit from The Institute), but their paranoia on top of his own is near making him crazy. No one in The Railroad pries too deeply into anyone’s past, but he’s still afraid someone will figure out who he is and ask him to shoulder the responsibilities of the whole Commonwealth.

He can’t be responsible for an entire wasteland again. He just _can’t._

Deacon finds a Mr. Handy unit patrolling the ghost town of Sanctuary Hills, and he avoids the robot with ease. He feels a little sorry for the thing, still hanging out in the last place its owner was before the bombs fell; waiting. He’s a little surprised some raider or scaver hasn’t found the robot and made it their own. Maybe it has a personality problem. Maybe, he thinks with a shudder, it used that circular saw to play ‘doctor’ on the last scaver unlucky enough to find it.

It takes him a moment to figure out how to get the blast door open because he’s never seen a vault this blatantly out in the open before. Then he’s scrambling across the ground to get onto the platform before it’s too far down. The further the elevator descends, the more tension eases from his shoulders. At the main door, he curses himself. Deacon sold his Pipboy when he left the Capital Wasteland for a healthy stack of caps. It was too visible, too easily identified him as a Vaultie—as the most famous Vaultie D.C. ever had. It was difficult, adjusting to navigating without it, but he made do. Now, he knows he missed a lot of the world when his nose was glued to that tiny screen.

Deacon pulls out his trusty screwdriver and kneels under the door panel. He manages to shock himself a couple of times before he finds the right combination of crossed wires that opens the door, but soon the massive, metal gear is being scrapped back. There is the hissing of pressure being released, and a grated walkway comes out to greet him.  
Whenever he breaks down and visits Vault 111, Deacon spends a moment to just stand in the entryway. After the door closes and the vault re-pressurizes itself, there is silence. Then, slowly, as his ears adjust to the quiet, he can hear the hum of the air recyclers and feel the low vibrations of the reactor through the soles of his shoes. For a moment, he swears he will hear Amata’s voice in his ear, and he’ll turn just enough for lips to brush his cheek as her hand threads with his.

Then Deacon will open his eyes, sigh, and make his way to the scientist living quarters to spend one night -one night is all he’ll allow himself to wallow in this particular fantasy as he spins the small, modified holotape that was the reason for her death.

\- - - - -

High Rise likes him.

And hey, what’s not to like? Deacon prides himself on being that one person you know you shouldn’t like, but do.

High Rise even seems to enjoy Deacon’s constant lies. His exaggerations. Deacon likes that High Rise enjoys his tall-tales, even though he knows that HR believes precisely zero of them. Deacon practices his craft on High Rise, seeing how far he can take a tale before the man calls him out on his bullshit. It’s too bad that Ticon is a skyscraper; the place would perfect if it weren’t, but he just can’t get comfortable that high above the ground. Great view, though.

High Rise notices his unease, probably because Deacon refuses to go near the windows. He’s pretty good at making it seem natural, but no one stays alive long in the Railroad if they lack observation skills. HR is polite enough not say anything, or maybe he doesn’t care, or doesn’t want to get mixed up in someone else’s hang up. Deacon’s cool with that, he prefers it when he’s an enigmatic mystery.

Glory, on the other hand, has no problems with poking soft spots.

Whenever they bring a new synth through Ticon with Glory as their heavy, she sticks around and talks with the synth. She tries to recruit them into The Railroad; to get them to help free other synths like The Railroad helped free them. Glory has a huge spiel about synths standing up for themselves and not letting humans take risks for them when they are not willing to take those same risks themselves. Deacon wants to stand in the background and chant ‘ra, ra, ra!’ to better facilitate the pep rally feel of the whole thing. Probably would too, if not for the certainty that Glory would shoot him without missing a beat.

For the most part, she’s wasting her breath. The Institute has instilled such a massive fear in every synth’s being that very few want to face the monster they so narrowly escaped. While he’s a member of the Ticonderoga safehouse, she only manages to convince one. Glory is never deterred though, and Deacon admires her bullheaded persistence.

“You afraid of heights?” she asks, nay, demands, early one morning after a successful package transfer.

Glory is sitting on a window sill, leaning carelessly against the ancient glass. Deacon is whistling (‘The Washington Post’ is the only song he ever whistles when the radio isn’t on because he likes the cheerfulness of Sousa. High Rise, however, does not.) and watching the sunrise from the relative safety of the couch farthest from the windows.

Deacon gives her a wide smile. “Why would anyone be afraid of heights in this dilapidated Old World high-rise that is one bad radiation storm from collapsing in a rusted heap of twisted metal and bodies?”

“Don’t talk about my baby like that,” High Rise says as he hands out Nuka Colas.

Glory snorts in amusement. “So, yes.”

Deacon shrugs his shoulders in an _‘ah, ya got me’_ way.

“Maybe you’d like the Switchboard better, then. Or are you some sort of Tribal savage?”

Deacon laughs. That's Glory for you, all the subtly of a momma deathclaw.

She’s trying to suss out how he works; how and why he acts the way he does. He thinks it’s because she’s a synth and she wants everyone to be categorized properly. And since she mentioned the Switchboard by name, there’s probably a promotion in the wind if she believes him reliable.

High Rise says nothing and smiles into his Nuka-Cola. He’s waiting for Deacon to come up with some spectacular bullshit.

“Ouch,” Deacon begins, “I’m pretty sure my vocabulary is way above your average tribal, plus I’m literate if you hadn’t noticed. _‘A quartz-clear dawn / Inch by bright inch / Gilds all our Avenue, / And out of the blue drench / Of Angel’s Bay / Rises the round red watermelon sun.’,_ ” he recites, gesturing to the beautiful sunrise taking place behind Glory. “Not exactly Angel’s Bay out there, but I hear the South is hell this time of the year.”

“Vault dweller then,” Glory says without missing a beat, barely sparing the sunrise a glance.

He doesn’t flinch when she says it. Deacon has learned that Vault 81 actually holds real, live Vault dwellers. He has even seen them from time to time wandering the Commonwealth and looking wholly out of place. He helps them when he can; he remembers what that was like.

“Actually, I came from an underground community of strictly kids. No adults allowed and we kicked kids out when they grew up. We even had a mayor! It was like Never Never Land, except, in the end, we all grew up. Actually, now that I think about it, it was kinda of like The Railroad,” Deacon begins warming to his fiction, and that always gives them extra credibility. “We all gave ourselves names, did a lot of sneaking around to avoid the Mungo’s (that’s adults, by the way), and never gave up the location of our super-secret cave when one of us was captured by Slavers. Must be why I feel so at home here.”

Glory’s eyes are slits of disbelief, but she hesitates to call him out on the lie. She’s not a 100% sure it is. That little bit of doubt is all he ever needs to fool someone.

“What did you call yourself?” she asks after a moment.

Glory has him. Real names are a no-no in this covert business they participate in, and if he refuses to answer, he’s giving real credence to the fiction. If he tells her, she’ll know it’s a lie.

Screw it, Deacon thinks. He’s a liar. Everyone knows he’s a liar. Play into it.

“Sue,” he deadpans.

High Rise’s shoulders start shaking then. He’s trying so hard not to laugh aloud.

Glory raises one perfect eyebrow.

“Honest! I was a boy named ‘Sue.’”

That cracks HR and he’s laughing out loud now. Deacon keeps talking, acting like he can’t hear.

“It was quite the joke, and out in the Wastes it got a lotta laughs from a lot of folks.”

Deacon should stop. Really, he should, but it feels good to make someone laugh. Even if Glory looks like she’s going to kill him for making her almost believe his lie.

“Sometimes girls laughed, and I’d get red, but a guy? Well, I had to bust his head; I couldn’t let some Waster asshole get away with that.” He lifts one shoulder in an easy shrug. “Life ain’t easy for a boy named ‘Sue.’”

That line really gets HR, and he’s dying with laughter now. Deacon scoops the Nuka-Cola from his hand and sets it on the table while High Rise remembers how to breathe. Glory huffs in exasperation and crosses her arms. Once again, he’s an enigmatic mystery.

When Glory has gone back to the Switchboard, Deacon and High Rise belt out an incredibly off-key version of that Cash favourite after too many whiskey shots. Undoubtedly making their latest synth rescue question their capability as agents.

Deacon gets transferred to the Switchboard a week later.

\- - - - -

The last thing Deacon did before he left the Capital Wasteland was have Pinkerton change his face.

By then, he had sold or given away all his non-essential possessions. He kept three things, though. The first, was the original edition of ‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’ autographed by Moira and him —after she insisted: ‘Think of how much it will be worth in a few decades!’ (he taped the only picture he has of him and his dad in the front cover the day he brought it home); the second was the holotape he found in the Jefferson Memorial that captured a happy moment between his dad and mom; the last was the modified holotape that has been the death of so many.

The last is the only one of those three things he keeps on his person at all times because he can’t let it fall into the wrong hands. It’s worn a small, rectangular patch in the front pocket of all his trousers and jeans. Deacon obsesses over the thing, he knows. Freaks out if it’s out of his sight just a second longer than it takes to switch outfits; spins it in his hand when he’s thinking long and hard about something.

Deacon gave the rest of his dad’s holotape recordings to Doctor Li. He figured she’d appreciate them. Or throw them into the Potomac, depending on her mood—he wouldn’t blame her if she did. His house in Megaton was still standing after what Three Dog had taken to calling ‘The Outcast Incident,’ and Deacon gave the keys, and Wadsworth, to Bryan Wilks—left it with Vera Weatherly as a birthday present. Sure, it’d be a few years before the kid was old enough to venture that way, but by then Megaton would be all fixed up after what happened with the Outcasts and in need of some new blood.

After that, Deacon didn’t have much of value left. Well, aside from loads of weapons and armour -which he sold for a small fortune. He left the modified vault suit Moira had given him and his collection of bobbleheads at the house. A surprise for Brian when he finally arrived to check it out.

No one knew he was leaving.

Deacon wanted the Lone Wanderer to fade into the annals of history quietly and without any fuss. However, he's pretty sure Li had him pegged after he gave her the holotapes. That look she gave him as he left. ‘You’re just like your father,’ it said.

_Yep,_ he thought as Pinkerton injected him with anaesthetic, _running and hiding from my issues; I’m exactly like my old man._

\- - - - -

He’d like to say The Switchboard is a well-oiled machine, but it’s really not. Deacon gives them bonus points for trying, though.

The place is swimming in technology, but no one, save for Tinker Tom, Doc Carrington, and he really has any idea what an amazing stroke of luck it is. Glory accused him of being a Tribal, but the real tribals are the rest of them. The sheer amount banging and grunting that goes on when people are faced with The Switchboard terminals makes him believe it's B.C. instead of A.D.

However, Switchboard heavies are so busy that most of them don’t spend a lot of time there. It’s good on the one hand because he’ll probably smack the next person he sees beating on their terminal, but bad because he enjoys the close walls and low ceilings of the place. It’s huge improvement on Ticonderoga, though he does miss High Rise. Desdemona, Glory and the Doc just don’t appreciate his prevarication, even though they have absolutely no problem letting him lie for ‘the Cause.’ It’s just the part where he won’t stop that’s got them all annoyed.

Tommy Whispers has a better tolerance for it though. Being Glory’s former student, Deacon imagines he’s got a tolerance for a lot of things. Their illustrious leader, Sly Nicolas, understands his need for deception; hell, it’s in his very name. And Tinker Tom? Well, he’s batshit and believes all the crazy things Deacon says. It’s so easy that it takes the fun out of it, so Tinker is probably the only person Deacon doesn’t outright lie to.

To be honest, Deacon didn’t think he’d make it this far with this rag-tag band. He figured he’d get bored of the covert bullshit and wander off looking for excitement elsewhere. Thing is, The Railroad, as messed up as it is, is a family. They watch each other’s backs, help each other when they’re down, and even when they don’t agree with or like one another, there's a common cause pulling them in the same direction. It’s even better than all the nostalgic memories he has of the vault because even as a kid, Deacon knew there was a divide between all the adults.

He joined for the adventure; stayed for the family atmosphere. Doesn’t that just seem like a soundbite from some pre-war ad?

His first big assignment from the Switchboard is to keep an eye on Bunker Hill. It’s important to The Railroad because nearly every package goes through it, but the only reliable eyes they’ve ever had in the place are Old Man Stockton’s. No outside tourist or agent has ever successfully gained the town’s trust. Caravaners are a tight-knit group, and Bunker Hill doubly so. Probably because they trade with raiders –which is just insane to Deacon. Seriously, did they want bodies on pikes?

Caravaners have their needs, though. Like, decent guards. Deacon figures he’ll start there and try to get on as a caravan guard outside Bunker Hill. If a trusted caravaner vouches for him, he should be in like Flynn. He just needs to look the part, and that starts with raiding the Switchboard’s armour stockpile.

Deacon has an excellent set of re-enforced leather armour that he, sort of, customized. Problem is, it's way out of the budgetary range of your average freelance merc, and you got to dress for the job you want. So, Deacon takes a mismatched collection of metal and combat armour and proceeds to beat the shit out of them with a ball-peen hammer. After they are sufficiently dented, much to their quarter master’s, Mr. Mathers, dismay, Deacon drags them along the concrete walls of the Switchboard. When they are scuffed and dented to a satisfactory degree, he finds some patched road leathers. Worn together, he looks just this side of a raider.

Now, all he needs is a badass haircut.

Dez finds him in the men’s bathroom, shaving the side of his head with a pair of clippers Tinker Tom pulled out of his junk pile and whistling his cheery band number. It’s been a while since Deacon had a moment to go see John down in Diamond City for a haircut and his red hair had become quite wild in the interim. He’s trying for a punked out pompadour. In his head, he chants ‘Tunnel Snakes rule!’ in Butch’s voice, and it makes him smile.

“You’re really going all-out on this,” she says as she leans against the hand sink next to his.

Deacon dodges the prompt. “You packin’ a little something extra in those jeans, Dez? No judgement here if you are, just warn a guy if you’re going to stand next to him at the urinals, yeah? I mean, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but we all look.”

She rolls her eyes and tries again. “Why are you going all-out on this?”

“I just always really wanted to be a caravan guard. The life seems so romantic, ya know? Never stayin’ in one place for long, wide open road always ahead of you, and a broken heart always behind. King of the road!”

Deacon checks the evenness of his buzzed sides against one another. Not bad. Not great, either, but at least it doesn’t scream raider. (It’s probably going to put a few points in his favour actually, if he tries to do this with perfectly coiffed hair, he’ll get spotted a mile away as a fake.) Desdemona’s irritation is almost palpable, and he wonders if he should chance a saucy wink. He decides against it and turns so that the back of his head is reflected in the mirror. He holds up a smaller hand mirror to reflect the first mirror and starts the clippers up again. He finds the process really taxes his brain power, like whoa.

“Carrington doesn’t think you’ll pull this off,” Dez says after watching him struggle for a few moments. “So I bet him 50 caps you would.” A pause. “I could really use 50 caps.”  
Deacon smirks. “Your wish is my command.”

\- - - - -

When Deacon returns to The Switchboard after three months (a swath of Bunker Hill reports behind him, offers from half a dozen caravans, and two permanent agents placed there by his hand), Doc Carrington treats his lingering radiation with a frosty continence as he grumbles about Deacon walking around with roughly 300 rads.

“How are you not vomiting everywhere?” the Doc asks. He doesn’t really want an answer, so Deacon just shrugs and grins.

Sly Nick gives him a hearty clap on his shoulder and starts talking about infiltrating Diamond City next.

Desdemona buys Deacon a drink at the Drumlin Diner with the 50 caps she smugly took from Carrington.

\- - - - -

Deacon’s been with Railroad for just over a year when he meets his first Courser. (Well, technically his third, since he met two while in the Capital Wasteland.) The other heavies laud his good luck. Glory in particular because she’s convinced Deacon could never handle one on his own; most heavies can’t. Only the couple synth heavies they have could honestly take a Courser in a one on one fight.

However, Deacon’s pretty sure that if he could take on five power armoured Outcast soldiers in a haze of grief and rage (with help, of course), he could probably handle one Courser in a fight to the death. Not that he wants to, mind you, just that he could.

Of course, he figured that the first Courser he met as a Railroad agent would be some faceless Gen 3 baddie and not him. It’s the first time his actions in the Capital Wasteland come back to haunt him and threaten to destroy the life he’s carved out in the Commonwealth. Threatens to peg him as The Lone Wanderer for everyone to see and it rattles Deacon right down to his core.

Deacon should have known the whole operation was going to go pear-shaped the moment Mr. Timms of Randolph house fame –a.k.a. Custom House Tower- insisted that three synth rescues be transported to Randolph for memory reassignment and eventual departure from the Commonwealth instead of the usual one. Sometimes, when there was increased pressure from the Institute the Railroad would risk moving two packages, but three? That was just asking for a Courser to swoop down on and get his murder-on on your happy little group.

Which is exactly what happened.

But Mr. Timms insisted. He said the safety of these synths was in imminent danger and their transportation could not wait. Not even a day. Randolph house is one of the Railroad’s largest and most important safe-houses behind the Switchboard itself. It's where numerous synths have left the Commonwealth via steamer. That importance buys Randolph, and Mr. Timms, a lot of sway in the Railroad hierarchy. So against all common sense, they agreed.

Deacon and High Rise were assigned to help two Randolph heavies, Twitch and Missy, to move the three synths. Glory argued to be assigned instead of Deacon, but Sly Nicolas refused. When Deacon was assigned to Ticon, he and High Rise had the highest package transfer success rate of any safehouse. Though Glory could destroy a Courser should one appear, the point of having Deacon and High Rise was to fly under the Institute’s radar and avoid a fight altogether. ‘Avoid a fight’ just wasn’t a phrase that Glory understood.

“This is the stupidest fucking plan I have ever heard,” Glory growls as Deacon readies to leave for Ticon. “I have never like that Randolph fuckhead; he thinks he’s hot shit.”

“If Timms actually thought he was hot shit, wouldn’t he have, like, a really low opinion of himself? Who wants to be compared to hot shit?”

“Shut the fuck up, Deacon. Don’t you get that Nicolas just signed yours and High Rise’s death warrants?”

Deacon stops shoving his scarce supplies into a beat up rucksack and lets a hand flutter dramatically at his heart. “Aw, Glory, I didn’t know you cared.”

She punches his arm in reply.

“Ow! Is that any way to send off a soldier?”

Glory sighs, looking defeated. Deacon squeezes her arm.

“Don’t fucking die; I hate making new friends.”

“Anything for you, beautiful. You know that synthetic smile of yours gets my heart all a flutter. I couldn’t bear to be the one who snuffs it out.”

Glory rolls her eyes. “On second thought: die.”

High Rise and Deacon meet up with the synths and their runner at the Tucker Memorial Bridge outside of Bunker Hill. Old Man Stockton is smart enough to have nothing to do with the assignment, so it’s a tourist that meets them. They then head to the courtyard outside of the creepily well-preserved Cabot House to join up with Twitch and Missy.  
Twitch defies his namesake and is a steady, hulking piece of man-meat that hauls a flamer with the ease of a pistol. Missy is just as prissy as she sounds, but the rifle she carries puts holes in raiders from 250 yards, and that makes her okay in Deacon’s book.

All the way there, Deacon’s skill crawls. He can feel a gaze on the back of his neck and it’s making the skin there flush under the constant scrutiny. He checks and rechecks their surroundings, scouts ahead to help them avoid raiders and muties, but never catches sight of whoever or whatever is watching them. Deacon wants to believe that the mission hype has him jumpy and he’s just imagining things, but he knows in his gut that things are going to go south.

It’s just a matter of when.

Deacon wants to relax once they reach the outskirts of Goodneighbour –almost there!- since there are plenty of eyes watching the area around the town that has no problem killing a few synths or raiders, but somehow, he tenses even more. If his shoulders get any tighter, he is going to end up looking like Quasimodo.  
No one talks; Deacon doesn’t even whistle. If this were a normal package transfer, he would be driving High Rise crazy with his recital of ‘The Washington Post’ while they picked off raiders.

In the distance, Deacon can see the glow of the 'OPEN' sign for Joe’s Spuckies up in Postal Square. They will go right at the neon sign and pass under the GNN ad that marks the final leg to the Customs House Tower.

They never make it to the sign.

Just like all the boogie-man tales’ heavies tell about Coursers, it strikes without warning; quick, silent and deadly. Missy is down before they even know what is happening. Twitch turns as she hits the ground, blasting a radius of fire as he does so. High Rise takes cover behind a chunk of concrete and Deacon dives behind a burnt out car, shouting for the synths to get down. They scatter into the night like so much dust, and frankly, it pisses him off. Down, not run. Damn it. There is probably another Courser or two waiting in alleys around them with recall codes at the ready.

However, right now, the only thing that Deacon cares about is living long enough to put a bullet between the eyes of Mr. Timms. It is blatantly fucking obvious that Randolph house has been compromised. This was a set-up from the get-go and Deacon is kicking himself for not speaking up. In the back of his mind, the part of himself that Deacon refers to as ‘The Lone Wanderer,’ reminds him that if Deacon had listened to him, this wouldn’t have happened.

Twitch is lighting the area on fire, and the Courser can’t seem to get a bead on him because of it. Deacon can’t see the synthetic sonuvabitch, or anything really because the heat of the fire is making the air waver. Deacon catches High Rise’s eye from where he is crouched down and HR shakes his head. He hasn’t seen the Courser either. Deacon gestures between the two of them and then points out to where Twitch is. High Rise nods. Deacon holds three fingers up and when the countdown reaches zero they both pop out of their cover and fire into the area around Twitch. After a moment they stop.

“Anything?” Deacon asks still pointing his plasma pistol out into the alley, looking for any signs of movement.

“No.”

Suddenly, there is blue laser fire from Deacon’s left. They both duck, but not before Deacon’s ruck sac takes a couple of shots. The extra plasma cartridges Deacon had stashed there are leaking all over the contents of the bag. He swears and rips the thing off, but plasma is already starting to corrode the leather armour on his thigh. Their extra stims are in there too. _Shit._

How stupidly they gave away their location. Deacon should know better, but it’s been awhile since he’s been in a real firefight –raiders hardly count, all chem-addled and sloppy, it’s appallingly easy to take them out- and he’s forgotten some things.

Deacon is carefully looking around the bumper of the car, trying to lure the Courser, when Twitch’s neck is sharply yanked to the side by a pair of invisible hands. Real fear settles in Deacon’s gut then -the Courser has a stealth boy! Both High Rise and Deacon fire into the area around Twitch, hoping to clip the Courser. They don’t. Blue laser fire comes at them, this time from the right and catches Deacon in the arm. He goes down with a curse.

At least laser fire self-cauterizes, but now his aim is shot. Ha! Shot!

High Rise fires in the direction the laser fire came from, but the Courser is already gone. Deacon’s blood is pumping so loudly in his ears that he can’t hear the sound of debris that is surely crunching under the Courser’s boots. A few blue laser shoots singe the rubble that High Rise is hiding behind. Deacon holds his modified plasma pistol steady in his good hand (stolen from the corpse of Colonel Autumn –it still has Enclave engraved on the side and A.A. on the butt because he can’t bring himself to scratch that victory off) waiting for a better indication of the Courser’s location.

Suddenly, something grabs High Rise by the neck and tosses him against the building Deacon is crouched near. HR slides down, limp as a rag doll, and hopelessness chokes Deacon. Then, the Courser grabs Deacon and lifts him by his throat until Deacon’s legs are dangling uselessly a foot above the ground. It rips his plasma gun from his hand and tosses it. The Courser’s stealth boy fades then, and Deacon is face to face with A3-21.

“Hark-ness?” Deacon gasps in surprise and air constriction. Jesus. This is really it isn’t it? Killed by the Courser he sent back to The Institute; the irony is worthy of a Bard play.

The Courser seems to recognize his old name because he pauses. Then, he jams a finger in the laser wound Deacon took. Deacon would have yelped in pain had he the air. A3-21 licks the blood he collected off his finger, carefully tasting it like Deacon is an aged wine instead of a human being.

“Sir,” A3-21 says into the darkness, “I have captured Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha.”

“Really?” a man says from behind A3-21

Deacon knows that voice.

“Genetic sample confirms.”

Doctor Zimmer steps up to A3-21’s shoulder, and just behind him, Deacon can see the escaped synths following Zimmer like good little robots.

“You’ve changed your face,” Zimmer says. “Smart boy.”

Deacon makes a weak, but crude gesture with his hand and Zimmer laughs.

“Oh, let him down, A3. Can’t you see you’re choking him?”

Like a pair of vice-grip pliers letting go of a bolt, A3-21’s hand drops Deacon to the ground. He collapses to his knees, hand clamping down on his wounded -now bleeding- arm, and coughs so violently he feels like he might heave up his guts.

When he finally stops, Zimmer speaks.

“You showed such intelligence last time we met. What happened? Why are you running with these Railroad fools?”

“What can I say?” Deacon starts in a raspy voice, “I guess The Brotherhood failed to completely crush my idealism. Or maybe, I’m just trying to make-up for a past mistake.” Deacon eyes A3-21 with sorrow.

“You did the right thing,” Zimmer scoffs “I know what The Brotherhood did to your vault, so if you’re looking to get revenge, we can help you. The Institute is always looking for capable surface agents.”

Now it’s Deacon’s turn to laugh. It quickly turns into a cough, and he has to swallow a couple of times before he can speak.

“Use one superiorly-arrogant organization to destroy another superiorly-arrogant organization? Pretty sure history has taught us that that doesn’t work. You do see the crumbling ruins around us, right?”

“Mistakes to be learned from, certainly.” Zimmer watches him for several silent moments. Deacon stares back stubbornly. He seems to come to a decision. “I’ll let you think on the offer, but don’t expect mercy next time. If you continue to run with the Railroad, the next Courser you meet will be your death.”

Zimmer motions to A3-21 and leaves Deacon kneeling in the rubble of the street. The synths they had been trying to free following placidly behind. When they are gone, Deacon scrambles to High Rise’s side. He sighs in relief when he finds a pulse. Then, he starts searching for his discarded rucksack, hoping to find one or two stims still intact. Deacon finds the bag next to the burnt out car and dumps the contents on the ground.

Everything is covered in plasma, but Deacon manages to find two intact stims and a can of purified water. His fingers are burning where he holds the can, and as quickly as he can, Deacon pops the top. He pours the water on the stims to wash off the plasma then picks them up, making sure the tips are good and clean before pouring the rest of the water on his hands to prevent severe plasma burns. There’s a little left in the can, and he tosses it on the corroded section of his armour, but it’s a lost cause. Before he heads back to High Rise, Deacon grabs his plasma pistol from the ground.

The first stimpak, Deacon injects into High Rise’s thigh, the second he injects into his own wounded arm. After a moment, Deacon doesn’t feel like he has to breathe past the gravel in his throat and the ache in his arm slowly dulls. High Rise groans and opens his eyes. He stiffens momentarily, probably thinking the Courser is still around, but when his eyes land on Deacon, he relaxes.

“Is it gone?”

“Yeah. Got the packages, though.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

High Rise chucks a piece of rubble at the far building. “Sonvabitch!” he growls. “That back-stabbing asshole, Timms, sent us out here to get caught. Fucker even sacrificed two of his own agents to do it! Help me up; I’m gonna kill him.”

Deacon gives HR his hand. He felt the same just a few short minutes ago. “Timms is probably long gone.”

“Maybe not. Maybe he figured the Courser would get us all.”

High Rise looks to the east, toward Randolph house and Deacon wants to scream. He was to get out of this place and regroup. ‘Hide, hide, hide!’ the kid in his head chants. He needs the safety and security of the vault. He needs to vanish. High Rise doesn’t appear to have heard the conversation with Zimmer, but maybe someone else did. He can’t be outed. He won’t be the saviour of the Commonwealth -he can’t!, but he won’t leave while High Rise still needs aid.

“Don’t go rushing off to play hero. You probably still have a concussion, and the rest of my stims are busted,” Deacon says, trying for the right level of humour and caution in his voice. It’s hard to tell if he’s achieved it; he can’t hear much past the voice in his head chanting that he needs to get out of this place. “Let’s go to Goodneighbour. We can send a message and see Amari.”

After what seems like forever, High Rise nods.

“Yeah. Okay. Reinforcements are probably a good idea.”

Deacon stays in Goodneighbour long enough to get High Rise to Doctor Amari at her clinic. He’d like to just drop him and leave (HR would understand, he’s sure), but Amari snares Deacon with demands about what happened. He wants to blow her off with some snarky comment, but The Lone Wanderer rears his ugly head and makes Deacon give her an account of the fuck-up that was the last hour—scratch that, the entire mission. She seems truly grieved to hear that two agents were lost on top of the reclaimed synths; Deacon will give her that.

“It was foolish to transport so many. What possessed you to try it?”

Deacon shrugs, losing patience with the whole thing. “I don’t make the decisions, doc. I just follow ‘em.”

“I will have a long conversation with Nicholas next time he is through.” Amari scowls, no doubt imagining that conversation, and it’s a frightening thing. “What about you?”

“I’m going underground for a while.”

She nods. “Probably best. I’ll see that High Rise makes it home safe. After a reasonable hiding period, of course.”

“Thanks.”

Deacon swipes a couple cans of purified water and a sweet roll from Amari’s stash, as well as some of the caps he keeps in a cache at the clinic (the bulk of the caps he had been carrying were now slag in that alleyway, melted by the leaking plasma). Even though it is the middle of the night and his eyes are burning, his arm is still sore, and the inside of his mouth tastes like a rusted tin can –an unfortunate side effect of stimpaks, Deacon leaves Goodneighbour. Not his best decision, but hey, not the worst either.

He arrives at Vault 111 the next evening.

\- - - - -

Deacon wants to spend longer than two days in the vault. Actually, he’d like to spend the rest of his existence there -to be removed from the possibility of making decisions that will hurt others. Even this far north, his choices are hurting people. However, he only purchased enough supplies from Trashcan Carla for two days, knowing himself and the likelihood of disappearing for good.

He knows that the longer he spends in the Commonwealth, the louder The Lone Wanderer will get. After the grief in the Capital Wasteland, it was easy for that scared kid to yell louder than The Lone Wanderer, doubly so after what happened in Megaton. One day, when The Lone Wanderer gets loud enough to force Deacon to get more involved in the Commonwealth’s problems beyond a Railroad lackey, he’ll leave. He’ll go somewhere else and start over because the newness of that place will force The Lone Wanderer to quiet while he reassesses the situation.

Despite the moniker the people of the Capital Wasteland gave him, the part of Deacon that is The Lone Wanderer hates wandering. He wants to settle somewhere; build a home and help the people. However, the part of Deacon that is that scared kid (the one that can’t let go of the fact that his father opened the un-openable vault door and abandoned him to the rage of Overseer Almodovar), tells Deacon in a voice that can’t be denied that people leave; people die. You’re always alone, so it's better to leave first. That way you won’t get hurt.

The Lone Wanderer scoffs at Deacon’s weakness every time he gives into the kid.

It’s the kid that votes for indefinite life inside the vault. The Lone Wanderer tells Deacon to get back to the Switchboard—right now! and inform the Railroad about this Courser development. Deacon compromises between the two. Sometimes, it feels like that’s all he does.

He spends his time in Vault 111 wallowing in self-hate for the moment of anger that led to him giving Harkness to Zimmer. How could he have been so stupid? Selfish?  
Moira said the holotape about the synthetic man that was looking for a computer whiz and a facial surgeon was an elaborate hoax. Deacon was so busy when he first the heard the holotape that he took Moira at her word and tossed it in a locker in his Megaton home. He promptly forgot all about it.

Sometime later, Deacon led a raid against the Slavers at Paradise Falls. They were a small group. Farmers and scavers mostly. A few pieces of repaired armour between them and rusty weapons. Not much. Certainly not much against a group of armed slavers, but the people were angry. They had lost loved ones to the slave trade; some gone without a trace, others sent to the Pitt, a few unfortunate ones killed for sport. It made Deacon sick. Still did.

They didn’t fear the slavers, though. Not with the famous vault dweller leading them into battle. A lot of them died clearing out Paradise Falls, but the slavers lost more and Deacon managed to kill many of them before they had time to react to the angry mob storming the gates. In the end, they were victorious and freed the few slaves still in camp. Deacon disarmed their bomb collars –goddamned Old-World and its horrific devices- with deft fingers.

Then, he saw the children in the cramped cages and lost it. His world turned into a haze of red rage. There were a few slavers that had surrendered upon the sight of their defeat and Deacon killed them. Unarmed men and women and he slaughtered them like animals. How could they be considered anything else? They didn’t deserve the privilege of the same species. His civilian army watched in shocked silence, but the kids were less surprised. They thanked him. Apparently, he was a trustworthy ‘mungo,’ whatever that meant. Later, when Deacon met Mayor MacCready, he understood why they were so nonplussed.

Deacon ended up escorting a few of the sickest individuals and their family members to Rivet City for medical aid. That was when he met Doctor Zimmer. When Zimmer asked for his help, Deacon brushed him off. Even with the prospect of caps. However, when Zimmer mentioned that his missing android had probably changed his face and wiped his memory, Deacon became interested again. The message on that holotape immediately coming to mind.

After the trip to Paradise Falls, he needed a little levity. A mystery would be a good distraction and if he could get rewarded for it, so much the better. It was fun at first. Acting like some pre-war private eye. In his mind, Deacon was Bogey from _'The Maltese Falcon.’_

Then, he met Victoria Watts. Or rather, he was accosted by Victoria Watts.

She plainly told him that she disliked his “investigation” and sarcastically asked him if he was a detective for hire. She then accused him of having a grudge against some android he hadn’t even met, and Deacon bristled because until that moment he was enjoying the mystery of it all. He hadn’t even decided what to do if he managed to find the missing android. She even had the gall to try and sell him on the plight of androids, up north in the Commonwealth, after all that.

There, androids were slaves. The Railroad –as they called themselves- helped these androids escape the clutches of The Institute. Deacon wasn’t really sold on the whole thing due to her unfriendly welcome and churlish attitude, so he asked what they did for human slaves, figuring if they helped any slave, he would contribute to their cause. But they did nothing for human slaves. They lacked the resources for that, and she claimed there were other groups in the Capital Wasteland that helped human slaves. Deacon had never seen any (he had yet to met Hannibal Hamlin), and he had to personally Paradise Falls to slow the slave trade in the Capital -people were still being taken to the Pitt.

The horrors he’d witnessed at Paradise Falls were playing on a constant loop in his head since he returned to Rivet City, and worse was how long it went on for because people feared going up against the slavers. The Railroad was a group that had the resources to ship androids through five states, and they ignored the actual slaves that were being sold in the Capital Wasteland every day. He was supposed to care about an advanced Mr. Handy robot over a human because it had a face?

Watts just kept pressing her case, even though every fiber of Deacon’s being was radiating anger. However, despite the internal tirade that was taking place in Deacon’s head, some manner of civilized vault teaching made him keep quiet instead of exploding in her face. Ultimately, he threw the piece of android tech Watts had given him in the Potomac. He wasn’t going to help her with a robot 'slave' when there were humans still being subjugated to real slavery.

Deacon had decided he wasn’t even going to continue investigating the case at all (despite that being exactly what Watts wanted and if Zimmer found his missing android, he wasn’t going to lift a finger to stop him from reclaiming it) since it had lost its former amusement value. However, while he was down in the Muddy Rudder having an angry drink, Belle Bony asked him if he was still investigating ‘the machine man.’

“Why?” he snapped.

“Because your bad attitude is driving away my customers-”

“My bad attitude?”

“Shut the hell up for a moment, yeah? You want to know where I’d go for a face swap if I thought it was worth wasting the fucking caps?”

“Where?” he asked, not the least bit interested.

“Pinkerton.”

Deacon laughed. “He’s gone.”

“The fuck he is. He’s too petty for that. Check the broken bow, but don’t blame me if you drown during the effort. Now get the hell outta my bar while I still got some business left.”

Deacon downed the last of his drink. “Yeah, yeah.”

He should have taken Bony’s warning to heart because he had damned near drowned trying to get into Pinkerton’s lair. He sputtered to the surface past the third door, coughing up water and swearing at himself for continuing to pursue that idiotic mystery after he told himself he was done with it. His curses alerted several mirelurks, and then Deacon was really ticked. The traps did not improve his mood any either.

By the time Deacon reached Pinkerton’s lab, he was wet, bleeding, and madder than a yao guai.

Pinkerton seemed to find his anger amusing and took a liking to Deacon’s foul mood. Maybe because it matched his own. He smugly told Deacon everything he knew about A3-21 (a.k.a. Chief Harkness), Rivet City, its counsel, and Dr. Li. Deacon took the information about the android to Zimmer in a final ‘fuck you’ to Ms. Watts.

Now, he greatly regrets that moment of anger and the actions it spawned; he’d condemned a man to servitude. If he could take it back, he would. There’s a lot of things he’d change if he could go back; people he’d save if he had the chance. But you can’t go back, you can’t go home, and Deacon’s pretty sure that you never find peace.

When his two days are up, Deacon leaves for Goodneighbour, but not before rummaging in the crumbling houses of Sanctuary for a new pair of sunglasses. Like the bottlecaps, his are a melted pile of plastic and metal in the alley outside Postal Square.

\- - - - -

Deacon thinks Goodneighbour’s motto should be: ‘Mind your own fuckin’ business.’

The Railroad doesn’t have much of a presence in the town beyond Amari because of the extortion racket that Vic and his goons run; The Railroad isn’t exactly swimming in caps. Amari is safe from the racket for the most part because she offers ‘discounted’ medical services to Vic and his men, but Deacon is sure that one of these days those idiots will be so jacked up on Jet and Psycho that they’ll storm the place for more chems and kill her in the process. He thinks she should relocate to a safehouse, but Sly Nick wants her exactly where she is to deal with Irma and Amari apparently has no problem with the sword that hangs over her head.

The good doctor is out when Deacon returns for more of his caps and that suits him perfectly. He’s heard of a ghoul out in Quincy who will do facial surgeries for the right price, and he’s itching for a new face. He doesn’t want to run into A3-21 again without the protection of a new jawline. Back out in the streets, Deacon notes that Goodneighbour is quieter than usual. There seems to be a heavy air to the place, tense even like the whole town is collectively bracing for something.

In the tight alleyways of Goodneighbour, née Colonial Boston, Deacon bumps into a ghoul in a garish red trench coat and a tricorner hat. He mutters an apology and wonders where on earth that getup was salvaged. Suddenly, the ghoul grasps his arm.

“Hey,” the man rasps. “You’re friends with Dr. Amari, right?” The stress on the word ‘friends’ seems to imply ‘Railroad agent.’

Ghouls aren’t exactly the most welcome people anywhere in the wastes, so the odds of him being a spy for The Institute, or even the resident raider assholes, are low. Deacon decides to play along.

“Bestest buds. Two peas in a pod, you might say.”

The ghoul smirks and Deacon believes he knows this man. He’s seen him around Goodneighbour while he was skulking around, gathering intel. “John, right? McDonough?”

“Go by Hancock, now.”

Deacon grins; that explains the outfit. “Ah, Massachusetts’ beloved governor and smuggler king. Great choice.”

Hancock laughs. “Thanks. Say, you gotta moment? Like to run something by ya.”

Deacon hesitates. He’s supposed to be on his way to Quincy.

“Just a moment, brother.”

“Yeah. Why not? Lay it on me.”

Hancock motions to a nook deeper in the alleyway and Deacon follows him around a dark corner. He feels a flash of annoyance at himself; he just let this ghoul lead him into what could be a trap where a couple other drifters stab him and take his caps. They’re in for a surprise if they think Deacon will go down easy; he’s far more than just a pretty face. Deacon fingers his combat knife.

Hancock turns and checks the way they came before speaking. His gravelly voice is low. “I’ve got a group of drifters armed to the teeth, ready to take out that asshole Vic and his men. Now, we could probably take 'em on our own, but I’d feel better about it if we had someone with some real combat experience backing us. Goodneighbour would benefit if someone dethroned that sonuvabitch, and so would your, ah –friends.”

Wow. This is so not the conversation Deacon thought he would be having down this alleyway. _Oh my God,_ he thinks, _Hancock wants to start a revolution._ He can’t help the laugh that slips out. The ghoul takes it the wrong way and starts to brush past Deacon, with a ‘whatever man’ on his lips.

It’s Deacon’s turn to grab Hancock’s arm. “Whoa, hey now, don’t go away mad. I didn’t mean to laugh at what you’re trying to do here. It’s a good idea. The best, in fact. Aces, even. Vic is a raider asshole in a fancy hat, and it's about time someone knocked his block off. But, you have to admit it’s a bit funny that another guy named Hancock wants to start a revolution in Boston.”

Hancock turns back, mollified. “Yeah, I’ll give you that. So you in?”

Shit. Deacon didn’t mean to imply that he wants to get involved. He tries to avoid getting involved in the Commonwealth’s disputes since he won’t be a very good spy if he’s a well-known face. Plus, this is the kind of thing The Lone Wanderer loves and Deacon doesn’t want to encourage him. However, Hancock is right; this could help The Railroad, and at the very least, Deacon will be able to stop worrying about Amari’s safety.

“Alright. Count me. After all, it’s the Right of the People to abolish a destructive government.”

“You bet, brother.” Hancock holds out his hand and Deacon shakes it. “You gotta a name, red?”

“They call me Deacon.”

“Well then, welcome to the revolution, Deacon.”

Hancock shows him where his little band of drifters is holed up outside of Goodneighbour. Deacon manages to hold in a long-suffering sigh, but only just. They are such a meager little group, the very dregs of Goodneighbour’s society; now with weapons. Why does he keep joining underdog groups? Oh, that’s right, because the top-dog groups are always a bunch of oppressive jerks. Just once, Deacon would like an awesome top-dog group to try and recruit him: ‘Hey we noticed you like being awesome. So do we! Wanna be awesome together?’

In his head, The Lone Wanderer is already calculating odds of survival, picking out the best marksmen, and deciding on plans of attack.

Hancock gathers his drifter militia together and introduces Deacon. Again, Hancock names him as a friend of Doctor Amari and there is collective murmuring of approval. Clearly, The Railroad is not as clandestine as they believe when it comes to Goodneighbour. He’ll have to mention that to Sly Nick when he gets back to the Switchboard. After the introduction, Deacon starts with the basics: anyone ever fired a gun? For the majority of them, this is the first time. As he feared. Then, he asks the group to point out the one person they think is the best marksman because it helps him determine their level of perception and general cohesion. They all point to Hancock.  
Well, that makes things easier.

Deacon lets Hancock know that he can’t spend more than a week with his militia. Less would be better as he has other responsibilities he needs to get back to. Hancock has no problem with this; he’s got a feel for the goons in Goodneighbour, and any day now they’ll go on their usual chem-fueled tear through town. Daisy will send a runner when she sees them head down to the Third Rail.

So, Deacon spends the next couple of days trying to improve the marksmanship of the drifters. It’s an impossible task from the start. Most are suffering withdrawal shakes, the rest are high on chems, and neither makes for very steady hands. How can you tell someone to kneel down, line up a shot, hold their breath, and then squeeze the trigger when they can barely master the stillness or attention required to load the weapon in the first place? He’s regretting agreeing to this because he’s sure one of these drifters will put a bullet in his back. Not on purpose, of course, but that hardly excuses them.

Hancock knows he’s frustrated; it’s probably obvious to them all as his jokes have taken a cutting, sarcastic edge. Deacon just doesn’t want to see these people get gunned down in the streets because they were idiotic enough to do this in their condition.

“You’re not training Railroad agents,” Hancock tells him the second night, voice low and amused. The firelight is reflecting off his black eyes and making them glow. This is the first time Hancock's talked about Deacon’s organization out loud. “They ain't going up against synths. Vic’s men'll be strung out when we act; easy targets.”

“Then what do you need me for? Don’t tell me you brought me here just for my good looks. I have a brain too, you know.”

Hancock chuckles. “And it just whirls away, a hundred miles an hour, don’t it? You play the laid-back cat, but I can see you’re far from it. You need to _relax,_ brother, because you’re my backup plan in case things go wrong.”

Deacon’s a little uncomfortable to be so easily seen through. He wonders if in another situation, one where The Lone Wanderer wasn’t so close to the surface, Hancock would have had him pegged so quickly. He deflects with a joke.

“So, no pressure.”

“Then, I guess it’s a good thing you seem to know all about that.” Hancock points to Deacon’s neck. There’s still nasty bruise there where A3-21 nearly crushed his throat. He could inject another stimpak and rid himself of it, but he needs the reminder.

“What? Oh, this? Just a shaving accident. You’re lucky don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Hancock gives a low, throaty laugh and the conversation moves on.

The next evening, Daisy’s runner arrives: Vic’s men have retreated, en masse, to the Third Rail. Hancock gathers his drifter militia and with him in the lead, Deacon right behind, they start out for Goodneighbour. It’s a ghost town when they arrive sometime after midnight. The citizens with houses have long since locked their doors and the drifters not a part of Hancock’s group have crawled into whatever crack or crevasse they could find. The whole thing is reminiscent of the battening down for a coming radiation storm.  
Deacon’s pretty sure these people would welcome a radiation storm in place of the hell that visits them in the form of Vic and his men.

Daisy meets them in an alley next to the Old State House and informs them that some of Vic’s men have returned to their quarters in the State House, while the rest are still partying in The Third Rail. She hands Hancock a coiled length of rope with a noose at one end. Oh. Deacon hadn’t realized the man was serious about lynching Vic. He’s not sure the ancient rails of the Old State House’s balcony will hold up under that kind of strain.

Hancock wants to split their merry band of men into two groups, but Deacon vetoes that decision.

“Do you want to get all your people killed? Cause that’s how you’ll do it. You do not have nearly enough experienced people to pull that off.”

“What do you suggest then, red?”

“That you stop staring at my glorious hair because you’re making me blush and imagine naughty things and that we go for the guys in The Third Rail first. They’re the larger group, so we should attack them while we’re still fresh. Then, we storm the State House, and you can throw Vic off the balcony.”

Hancock chooses to not acknowledge Deacon’s initial comment with anything other than a snort of laughter and says, “Third Rail it is.”

Ambushing a bunch of drunk, high raiders turns out to be more difficult than Hancock thought and easier than Deacon had expected. The door guard is appropriately alarmed when Hancock, in all his red-coated glory, steps through the door of The Third Rail wielding a sawed-off shotgun. He is even more alarmed when Deacon and the rest of Hancock’s militia follow. Hancock bashes the man’s face in with the broad side of the gun in an attempt to keep their presence unknown for the moment, and the raider goes down in a crumpled heap.

“You got off easy,” Hancock growls and tosses the rope on the man’s chair to be collected later. Then, he motions for the militia to follow him.

Through some feat of luck, they manage to get down the stairs into the Rail proper without incident. In fact, they probably could have gotten the complete drop on the raiders if Whitechapel Charlie hadn’t indignantly shouted at them from across the bar.

“Oi! Small arms only, you twats. And they gotta be holstered if you wanna drink.”

A dozen or so raiders look around at the commotion, some already going for their guns, and Deacon decides, once and for all, he really doesn’t like Mr. Handy robots.

“We ain’t here for drinks, Chuck. We’re here for blood. Get ‘em!” Hancock bellows those last two words, and the whole bar erupts in gunfire. Deacon can’t hear Charlie’s response over the din, but he thinks it's probably something along the lines of, “Fuckin’ drifters.”

Hancock takes out the two closest raiders with his shotgun, their faces disappearing in a splattering of blood and brains. They didn’t even get a chance to get off the couch. He falls back slightly to reload, and a couple of his militia take his place. They spray the room with their submachine guns indiscriminately and manage to hit the raiders only because of the target rich environment. Deacon, for his part, is trying to pick off any of the raiders that look like they've got more of their shit together than the others (ie: they’re less high, less drunk, or have a better tolerance for the stuff), before they get a chance to kill any of Hancock’s militia. He can’t help it if they friendly fire themselves into oblivion, but he can try and prevent the raiders from helping.

A couple of the smartest raiders have dived behind the bar and are using it as cover to pick off members of the militia. Deacon kicks over a couple of tables and the ones that aren’t in cover behind the support pillars next to the stairs take cover with him. Unfortunately, the tables are flimsy pieces of pre-war shit, and he doesn’t expect them to last long. Hancock and few others have hunkered down behind a Nuka-Cola vending machine that’s close to the makeshift stripper stage the bar hosts in an attempt to take out the raiders behind the bar.

Thanks to the slow reaction of the majority of the raiders, most of them are dead or bleeding out on the bar floor. Deacon is starting to think they might actually get Hancock’s militia out of this mostly intact when the door to the V.I.P. room is thrown open and half a dozen more raiders join the fray. He hears the door slam against the wall and the cry of the woman at his side as she goes down with a bullet lodged in her thigh before he has a chance to react.

Deacon swings his plasma pistol around and takes out one of the last raiders running out of the room with a shot to his exposed neck. The plasma eats a hole through his flesh, and the raider collapses to his knees as he scrabbles at his neck in an attempt to prevent from himself bleeding out. Deacon wishes he thought to grab a stealth boy from his cache at Amari’s clinic; he could probably take out most of these clowns with his knife before they caught on.

The newest raiders kick over the loungers and couches that litter the room, taking cover and spraying Deacon’s tables with gunfire. They’re starting to splinter really bad, and Deacon needs to make a decision, now, about what to do. The bullets let up for a moment and Deacon chances a look up. It seems as if an argument is going on between the raiders behind the bar and those in cover behind the couches. Maybe one of them got hit with a little friendly fire. This is his opportunity, and he hopes Hancock is paying attention because he’s about to do something really stupid.

Deacon jumps out from behind the table and dashes across the bar. He leaps over one of the overturned couches and takes out the two raiders hiding there in the surprise with a few precise shots. Then he plasters himself, in a crouch, against the bar, knowing that if the raiders hiding there want to kill him, they’ll have to chance getting shot by the militia to do so. Frankly, he’s surprised he made it one piece. Then again, he’s always had an ungodly amount of luck when it comes to combat, which is balanced by is rather atrocious luck when it comes to family. Can’t have everything, he supposes.

The last two raiders that came from the V.I.P. room are in cover behind a lounger, kitty-corner to Deacon. They're already turning to take him out, when a couple of Hancock’s militia jump over their cover -apparently emboldened by Deacon’s similar action- and land on the raiders, punching and kicking. Well, that just leaves the pair that is still behind the bar. Deacon is trying to figure out a plan on how to get at the raiders without getting killed when he spots another two creeping down the stairs. Shit. They must have been upstairs in the bathroom, and he’s too far away to do anything about it.

“Hancock!” Deacon shouts, “The stairs!”

Hancock, and the men he’s got with him, immediately grasp the problem and rush the stairs. Now, all Deacon has to worry about is not getting shot by a stray bullet. He’s feeling a bit stupid about his previous move, because now he’s stuck out here in the open, unable to move for fear of getting shot in the front or the back as the raiders behind the bar take pot shots at Hancock and his crew. Then, he hears the tell-tale sound of a saw blade going through flesh and the cry of one of the raiders behind the bar. Deacon cannot suppress the shudder that wracks his frame. Suddenly, visions of Andy as he cheerfully chopped Beatrice into pieces are swimming through his mind’s eye.

He’s not sure what prompted Whitechapel Charlie to throw in with Hancock; maybe’s he’s just sick of his bar getting shot up, but Deacon’s not about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. He takes the opportunity to jump the bar. One raider is still screeching after Charlie’s treatment, his chest and arms wet with blood, the other has managed to get a hold of the robot’s saw and flamer arms, keeping Charlie from finishing the job as they each struggle to get the upper hand. Deacon knees the bleeding raider in the face, and he goes down, silent.

Hancock catches sight of Deacon making his move behind the bar and shouts across the room: “Don’t let that asshole kill that robot!”

Deacon sighs. He was sort of hoping he could let the raider kill the Handy and then he could step in and finish the guy off. He aims his plasma pistol at the back of the raiders head and squeezes the trigger. As if in a final act of defiance, the raider explodes in a shower of green goo, painting both Deacon and Charlie in entrails. Deacon stands completely still, utterly disgusted and wanting to wipe his face off, but fearing touching it with his hands will only make the situation worse. At least he had his sunglasses on; that’s a plus.

There is one more shotgun blast, and the bar falls quiet. Then Hancock starts to laugh and slowly the rest of surviving militia join him. He must look quite the picture. Deacon gingerly takes off his sunglasses and takes the cloth that Whitechapel Charlie thoughtfully hands him with a “Ta, mate.”

“I’ve heard that plasma weapons could do that to a man, but I’ve never actually seen it happen,” Hancock says as he picks his way across the body-strewn room.

Deacon wipes the goo off his face. “If I had a Pipboy, I would program it to detect the genetic anomaly that makes people do that so I could avoid situations like this.”

“Not your first time, then.”

“Not by a long shot. Funnily enough, it never gets any less disgusting.”

“So, what ‘appens now?” Charlie asks, two of his three eyes focused on Hancock and Deacon.

“Now we finish off the last of Vic’s men, and then the man himself. You’ll stay down here and keep your mouth shut if ya know what’s good for you. Later, we can talk about cleaning this place up."

Charlie watches Hancock with what Deacon can only describe as narrowed eyes, despite not having the eyelids that make that expression possible, before he holds out his pincer arm for Hancock to shake. “Never liked those cunts, anyways,” he says.

Hancock grins and shakes the robot's hand. “Alright people, gather whatever ammo and chems you can find, we still got work to do.”

“Ah, the time-honoured tradition of looting. Hey, if any of you guys come across a pair of sunglasses, pass ‘em here, yeah? These ones are toast.” Deacon tosses his goo covered sunglasses to the ground. He’ll never get those streaks off.

After the bodies are sufficiently scavenged, and Deacon finds a new pair of sunglasses (they’re patrolmen’s, so they are a little more intimidating than Deacon likes, but hey, not covered in bodily fluids, so that’s a positive), they move back out onto the street. The concrete and subterranean nature of The Third Rail has prevented their fire-fight from attracting the attention of Vic’s remaining forces, and it’s here that Deacon suggests the group split up. Two doors into the Old State House, two groups; then they meet in the middle and go up.

Hancock takes six militia and Deacon gets the remaining five. Two of Deacon’s guys are the ones who jumped the couch and beat the two raiders to death for him. It makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside that they want to stick with him. The door to his side of the State House swings open easily when Deacon tries it, and he’s almost disappointed he didn’t have to break out a bobby pin and his trusty screwdriver. Inside, it’s quiet, and Deacon can hear Hancock’s group shuffle in the other door.

They sweep the rooms one by one, and from the few raiders Deacon comes across, it’s clear that the bulk of the men had been down in The Third Rail. Hancock wants to get the jump on Vic, so Deacon pulls out his hunting knife and shows his group the best way to dispatch a sleeping enemy. Education! Yay! His armour is already covered in unspeakable grossness, what’s a little more blood? Red and green look so good together, after all.

Deacon and his group meet up with Hancock and his at the bottom of the stairs. Hancock directs half their group to stay on the bottom floor and watch the exits, just in case there are some guys they missed still roaming the town. The rest of them head up the stairs and into Vic’s lair proper. Hancock kicks in the door to Vic’s rooms. The man in question is sitting on a couch, cigarette in one hand and other resting on top of some woman’s head as she sucks his cock. Deacon grimaces, because Jesus, Hancock is going to throw this man off his balcony with his dick swinging in the breeze. He hopes he never has occasion to be on this ghoul’s bad side.

Hancock points his shotgun at Vic’s head. “Evenin’ Vic.”

“What the fuck- Get off, get off!” Vic shoves the woman aside and she falls to the ground in a heap, her dark hair a curtain in front of her face.

“Now, that ain’t any way to treat a lady,” Hancock says as he motions for the militia member that picked up the coil of rope from outside the Third Rail.

Vic makes to tuck himself away and stand, but Hancock steps closers with his shotgun and tsking sound. Vic’s hands still.

“How do you feel about neckwear?” Hancock asks as the militia member, a kid that can’t be more than sixteen, drapes the noose around Vic’s neck.

“Get this fucking thing off of me. Who the fuck do you think you are? Boys-” Vic’s cry cuts off as the kid tightens the noose with a jerk. With a wave of his hand, five of Hancock’s men start dragging Vic across the room.

Then, the whole thing takes a nose dive into the surreal as Hancock starts reciting the Declaration of Independence. That ghoul has a real flair for the dramatic. It’s thespian really. The guy should have been on the stage.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—”

As Hancock leaves the room, Deacon offers his hand to the woman huddled on the ground. She looks up, past his hand, and her hair falls back from her face. She’s stunning, but there’s a wariness in her blue eyes. Fortunately, he’s managed to shake most of the goop off his armour, though he’s sure he still looks a mess. Deacon waits for her trust. After a moment, she allows him to help her up. Still holding her hand, Deacon follows in Hancock’s wake; his speech continues:

“—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government—”

As he talks, Hancock’s militia is dragging Vic, a squirming mess of flailing limbs, toward the doors and out past the circular railing that marks the center of the State House. Vic tries to grab hold of the bannister, but Hancock stomps on his arm, without losing his place in his speech, and the procession continues on. That was probably the man’s last-ditch effort. Vic’s already looking a little blue, and he isn’t even swinging. Deacon’s hand twitches at his side, he wants to touch his own neck where the Courser bruise is still an ugly mess, but he doesn’t.

“Hope you didn’t like that guy,” Deacon says as the militia sets about tying the loose end of the rope to the balcony’s railing. “because he’s about to become the Old State House’s newest accessory.”

“Good,” is all she says; voice smoky and low. Deacon can’t argue with that.

“—Laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness!” Hancock’s voice has risen to a crescendo as he stands on the balcony of the Old State House. Two of the militiamen are holding Vic’s struggling form on just this side of the railing. Then, Hancock gives a slight nod and they shove Vic off.

Huh. Deacon was sure that old railing wasn’t going to hold.

“Goodneighbour: Of the People, For the People!” Hancock cheers and met is with a chorus of echoing sentiment.

Daisy must have been busy while they were off killing raiders, bringing the whole town out for a little good old-fashioned Commonwealth justice. In the back of his mind, The Lone Wanderer hums his approval and Deacon heartily agrees.

Of the People, For the People. That’s a _way_ better motto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At Ticon, Deacon recites the last verse of _‘Southern Sunrise’_ by Sylvia Plath. 
> 
> According to the Wiki, it’s hinted in game that Zimmer never returned from the Capital Wasteland, but I don’t buy that. I think he just perversely enjoys _personally_ hunting escaped synths, Coursers in particular, and thus spends time on the surface. Plus, with one (or two) Courser(s) body guard(s), I believe he had to have made it back, because Ayo being Acting Director of SRB for 10 years is stupid. They would have declared Zimmer dead after a couple of years if he had went missing.


	2. Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a ham.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Why, he is the prince’s jester: a very dull fool;_  
>  _only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:_  
>  _none but the libertines delight in him; and the_  
>  _commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy;_  
>  _for he both pleases men and angers them, and then_  
>  _they laugh at him and beat him._  
>     
>  _-Much Ado About Nothing (2.1.124)_

It’s been over two weeks by the time Deacon returns to The Switchboard. A new face and a new haircut -a little something John in Diamond City called ‘Anchorage’. That’s got to be ‘creative license’ on his part, because the last time Deacon visited Alaska, no one had this stylish of a haircut. He does wish that he had some reliable way of masking his hair colour, though. If it were brown or black, he’d be totally anonymous, but people always remember a redhead. Deacon is a little too vain to cut it off completely (yet, anyways), but it just may come to that. 

Also, while he’s wishing on stars, a voice change would be handy too. Accents aren’t that hard to do if you spend time with someone who actually speaks with one, and they do a moderate job of disguising a voice. Deacon knows his voice is a little too distinct for his line of work. He’s not Bond, he can’t get away with blatantly advertising he’s a spy, escaping from ridiculously complicated traps, and sleeping with women whose parents have very questionable naming standards -not to mention that having ‘License to Kill’ is extremely overrated.

Or maybe’s he’s just too attuned it; voices are the only thing he never forgets. Names? He definitely forgets those -not the best trait for a spy, he knows, but over the years he’s met so many people and they all just blur together. Faces? Sometimes. But a voice? _Never._

Today, at least, he’s grateful for a distinctive voice. It’s probably what saves him from being the Railroad’s latest target practice.

Since he now has a face the other members of the Railroad won’t recognize, Deacon doesn’t enter the Switchboard via the front door. That’s just asking for some twitchy recruit to gun him down. Instead, he heads in through the emergency escape tunnel; partly to keep his life and partly to prove a point he’s been trying to make since he got transferred to the Switchboard: that they need a couple of guards watching this entrance. 

Sly Nick and Desdemona are convinced that the automated turrets are enough to keep this entrance free of unwanted ferals or synths, but Deacon knows that any scaver with a knack for computers like Tinker Tom or a Gen 2 synth with a virus passcode-cracker can break through their security systems and disable the turrets. They need a better warning system and a weekly changing passcode just isn’t it. 

It’s embarrassing how quickly Deacon hacks the turrets. He’s been gone now for two passcode changes and still it doesn’t take him longer than thirty-seconds to power the turrets down. Maybe this will show them that they need a rotating guard down here. It may also get him shot before he gets a chance to explain that he's doing this for their benefit. After his tangle with A3-21, Deacon’s paranoia has risen substantially and he can no longer tolerate The Railroad’s lack of concern in this area. Even if it means talking his way out of an execution.

He arrives at the security gate that keeps the emergency escape tunnel separate from The Switchboard’s Checkpoint Alpha and raps on the chain link fencing as he says, “Uh, excuse me? Is this The Railroad?”

The flurry of activity that those words cause is almost too much for Deacon and he has to fight to keep a straight face. Along with Glory and Tommy Whispers, there are a few other heavies currently in-house; they all point their weapons at Deacon’s head. The others in Checkpoint Alpha are agents, but they have little to no combat experience and take cover behind the room's desks. Sly Nicolas appears, with Desdemona in tow, out of the CIC. 

“What the hell is going on here?!” Sly Nick yells as he hops down the stairs, Dez hot on his heels. When he pushes his way to the front of the group, Deacon smiles and waves at him -he’s glad The Railroad has a ‘question first’ policy. “Who the hell are you?”

“And, more importantly,” Dez brakes in, “How did you get in?”

Deacon jabs a thumb behind him. “There’s like this damp tunnel back there filled with turrets and I figured they had to be guarding some sweet salvage. Never thought it’d lead to The Railroad, though. Cool.”

Between his new face, updated hair, and the patched bomber jacket and jeans he sporting -Fall is definitely here, and the Commonwealth is getting cold at night- he knows he doesn’t look a thing like a scaver. He tore apart his leather armour while he was at Diamond city and has crudely sewn pieces of it into the coat and made leg guards out of the rest. Altogether, he looks like a merc, but (he likes to think) a charming one, and by the way Glory is eyeing his holstered plasma pistol and combat knife, a dangerous one as well. Those patrolman’s sunglasses he picked up in Goodneighbour are really adding to his look. 

“So, uh, are you guys just gonna stand there and points guns at me all day? I mean, fighting is _so_ 2077.” Deacon flashes them a wide grin, and he watches Glory furrow her brows slightly. He goes in for the kill, so to speak. “Say, do any of you guys know who the President of the United States is?”

There’s a collective, silent back-peddling. He’s just asked The Railroad’s current sign. One, he might add, he came up with. Glory is the first to give the countersign.

“I think it’s John Henry Eden.”

Deacon nods. “Thought so.”

Sly Nicolas steps up to the security gate and gives Deacon a scrutinizing glance. “Your name, agent.”

“Aw, Nick, you don’t recognize me? I’m hurt.” He gives a little bow. “Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood, at your service.”

There’s dead silence from the group, then Tommy Whispers bursts into laughter. The two of them bonded somewhat over they’re preference for stealth boys in combat and love of the GNR radio plays about Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood and his stalwart, ghoul manservant, Argyle.

“Deacon! You asshole!” he says, still laughing. “I thought I recognized your voice, your face is still ugly, though, even if it is different.”

“So, I’m not rocking that line between Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart? I was so specific, too!”

Tommy is about the only one who finds the situation funny. Sly Nick and Desdemona are furious. Glory punches his arm when the security gate is finally released and Deacon steps into the Switchboard proper. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Sly Nick demands. “You could’ve been killed.”

“If I’d’ve come in the front entrance, yeah, I probably would’ve been. But since I’ve been harping on getting that back tunnel properly secured and nothing has moved on that front for the last _year_ , I figured in the two weeks I’ve been gone, you hadn’t suddenly followed my recommendations. You might want to now, though. Those terminals aren’t half as secure as you think they are.”

“Clearly.”

Deacon take a seat and props his boots on the closest desk, tipping his chair back. “You guys missed me. Admit it. It’s must be _so_ boring around here when I’m gone.”

“We were…worried about you, Deacon,” Desdemona replies, her anger defusing somewhat. “Amari forwarded your report, but when you didn’t check in we feared the worst.”

“What? That _another_ Courser got a tip off to our location and decided to finish crushing my throat?”

Sly Nick and Dez share a look that has Deacon worried.

“Please tell me that bastard got what was coming to him.”

There’s silence from the room and Deacon is going to assume that’s a 'no'. 

“Mr. Timms names you as the leak,” Doctor Carrington says as he joins the group from the upper level. Deacon guesses he's been listening for a while. “He says that Randolph house was wiped out on your information. It seems unlikely that both you and High Rise manage to survive an attack by a Courser when Randolph’s two best heavies are killed. Coincidence?”

For a moment Deacon is too shocked to form any reply other than, “What?” He can’t believe that Randolph house is gone. Just - _gone_. There were over a dozen agents at that safehouse. 

“There’s more,” Desdemona says as she sits on the edge of Deacon's desk. Sly Nick is gauging his reactions from her side. “Timms arrived on scene too late to provide help, but he did see you speaking with an Institute agent. Who then, spared your life.”

Deacon always imagined in a moment like this there would be a hundred thoughts crowding his mind with possible outcomes, explanations, and denials. However, the only sound in his head is that of ringing silence. He stares at Desdemona in blank surprise, trying to find words, _any words._ Then, The Lone Wanderer breaks the surface of silence in Deacon’s mind and gets him to fight. His chair slams to the ground. 

“Oh, I get it. You’re telling me that despite the spectacular fuck-up that was that last mission, we’re taking the word of the man who set the whole thing up in the first place? i.e., that I’m the traitor in all this. Ya know, if this were a movie, I’d be asking for a lawyer right about now.” Deacon stands and puts his wrists out. “Or are we just gonna skip the pesky evidence part and jump straight to a firing line?”

“I’m glad someone else sees how fucking stupid this whole thing is,” Glory growls from behind Deacon. “Timms ‘conveniently’ happens to get to the alleyway in time to see Deacon consorting with the enemy? I call bullshit.”

“Ditto,” Tommy Whispers agrees.

“The whole is rather suspect. It’s hard to know whose version to believe,” Carrington says as he settles against a desk.

Sly Nicholas has yet to say anything, and while Deacon appreciates the support he seems to have from the other agents, Nick’s opinion is the only one that matters at the moment. Finally, the man speaks. 

“Did you? Did you speak with the Institute agent? Did you say or _trade_ anything in exchange for your life?”

Deacon realizes he’s going to have to offer a piece of the truth if he wants to get out of this situation alive. 

“His name is Zimmer.” The Switchboard collectively recoils when Deacon names him and that does not bode well. “I met him when I was in the Capital Wasteland. Did some merc work for him and he paid in useful tech. Then he left. No idea why. Didn’t even know he worked for the Institute. When that Courser jumped us, I recognized it as the hulking bodyguard that was Zimmer’s shadow back in the Capital. Zimmer tried to recruit me as an agent for The Institute and left me alive to ‘think’ about it, but I didn’t give him anything about The Railroad. He wasn’t even interested in the fact that I worked for us, just that it showed a lack of intelligence.”

Glory snorts. "Asshole."

Sly Nick’s expression is hard to read. Deacon's not sure if the man believes him. Probably doesn’t, since all Deacon does is lie. However, if there’s even a hint of doubt, he's got a chance.

“What kind of work?” Sly Nick asks.

Deacon shrugs. “Usual mercenary stuff. Kill that person, collect that piece of tech, interrogate someone else. Look, I was a desperate, hungry kid back then. I don’t know if you’ve been to the Capital, but it makes the Commonwealth look like the Garden of Eden. I was willing to work for anyone who wasn’t a slaver or raider to make some caps, the work didn’t matter.” He gives a harsh laugh. “I got one out of two right, at least. The only reason I’m not dead right now is because I was a good at my job and Zimmer thought I still might be useful.”

Sly Nick stares at Deacon for a long moment, then turns to Desdemona. They share a silent conversation before Nick turns to Glory.

“Glory, take Deacon to see P.A.M.” He looks at Deacon. “I want a full report on everything that went down on that mission. _Everything_ , start to finish. Then, we’ll decide on how to move forward.”

As Glory escorts Deacon up the stairs, he decides that things could have been worse. Not that it helps with the burning sting of betrayal that’s currently rolling around in his gut. _Ah, my old friend_ , he thinks, _welcome back. Hope you had a good vacation. Mine was fantastic. Wish it had lasted longer, though._

It takes about an hour for Deacon to type his mission report in the Databanks; omitting a few key bits of his conversation with Zimmer, naturally. All the while, Glory sits in one corner, an annoyed expression on her face, leg jiggling in impatience. Occasionally, she mutters a curse. It comforts Deacon to know she's on his side in all this and he wonders how High Rise is fairing. P.A.M simply stands near the input terminal, completely still as she processes; her coolant ticking through her chassis. The sound reminds Deacon of the sound of water flowing through the piping in the vault and it soothes his nerves.

When he’s done, Deacon hops up on the desk that Glory is sitting next to. He gives her arm a gentle shove with his thigh. 

“Thanks.”

She snorts. “Yeah. For all the good it did you. Ugh, this whole situation is bullshit! We never should’ve done that run in the first place. I swear, if I ever see Timms, I’ll snap his neck.”

“Oh, stop. You’ll give a man _ideas_.”

“Ha! As if you could handle me.”

Deacon gives a dramatic sigh. “You’re probably right. You’re too wild a thing to give a heart too.”

“You know it.”

Desdemona enters then and Deacon’s slightly improved mood falls.

“I need a moment with, Deacon,” she says, looking at Glory. There’s a moment where he isn’t sure Glory is going to listen, but after a tense few seconds, she stands. “Please close the door on your way out.”

Before Glory leaves, she gives Deacon’s arm a squeeze. 

“So,” Dez starts after the door clicks closed. “This is a hell of a situation.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

She sighs and takes a seat. “I know this must feel like a pretty big betrayal right now; all of us are reeling from the fallout of this last mission and the loss of Randolph house. Sly Nick, especially. He and Timms came up throughTthe Railroad together, worked many package transfers and ops as a team, one of the best we had. Kind of like you and High Rise. So, you can see why Nick is inclined to believe Timms over you because the alternative is almost too much to bear.”

Yeah, Deacon can understand that.

“The thing that makes you one our best agents, hell, our best field agent, is also the thing that is working against you right now. I believe you, Deacon, I want you to know that. I know you had nothing to do with the attack on Randolph and that you got extremely lucky when you met that Courser, but Nick needs more time to process. 

“You’ve been given a lot of leeway in the last year because of your success rate, but your promotion to HQ caused a stir. Most agents have to slog it out for a year or more before they’re trusted to join the inner circle, but you got here in a few short months. Sly Nick is questioning his decision to bring you here and we need to give him a reason to trust you again.

“So, here’s what were going to do: I’m sending you out on a mission and you’re quarantined until further notice; dead drop communications only. If you show up at a safehouse during this time, _any_ safehouse, you will be shot on sight. Providing, we recognize you, of course." Dez gives him a wry smile. 

He wants to return it, but he can’t muster the energy right now. This feels just like it did when Amata told him he was too much of a polarizing influence and asked him not to return to the vault. Deacon still remembers the unshed tears in her eyes. 

“What’s the mission?”

“Remember, last year when Sly Nick wanted to have you infiltrate Diamond City because we thought it might have fallen under Institute control?”

“Yeah. It got vetoed though ‘cause we were spread too thin trying to get Kilo house set up in University Point.”

“Well, it’s back on the table. We need all the intel we can get about possible Institute influence in that city. I don’t care how you do it; join DC Security, become a scrap trader, do card tricks in the market, just do whatever it takes to put your finger on the pulse point of that city. This is a long-term, deep undercover assignment. We’re talking a year or more. These people are suspicious of newcomers and it will take all your charm to win them over.”

“And we both know I’ve got a considerable amount of that. When do you want me gone?”

“Tonight. Mathers is putting together a care package for you as we speak.”

Jesus, that’s quick. “Report timeline?”

“Monthly, unless there is something extremely important we need to know. I don’t expect you’ll have much to say during the first few months, just let us know you’re still alive.”

Deacon nods. He needs Dez to leave him alone for a bit so he can process everything and get his mask more firmly in place. It’s slipped a lot in the past couple of hours. 

“Come on,” she says, standing. “Let’s get your things.”

“Can’t be left alone, huh? I see how it is, you need to drink it all in before I go, right? A whole year without me will be tough, but you’ll survive. And, hey, if you’re going to make a wager with Carrington this time, I get half. Can’t let you get rich off my hard work.”

Desdemona’s grateful laugh carries them to Mr. Mathers.

\- - - - -

Ah, Diamond City. The Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth. 

To Deacon, that slogan always inspires images of lush gardens and plentiful harvests. It’s a severe disappointed every time he arrives and finds a ramshackle town inside a ballpark that only boasts the colour green on its concrete walls. Still, he likes it better than Rivet City; no danger of drowning here. 

It’s mid-afternoon when he arrives, bomber jacket slung over one shoulder, the fall days are still plenty warm while the sun shines, and he heads for the Dugout Inn. It’s only been a few days since he was here last and he knows Vadim will interrogate him (in a friendly way, of course), about why he’s back in town so soon again, but a bar is always the best stop for the latest gossip and maybe a lead on a line of work. The five hundred caps issued to him from the Railroad coffers, and the two hundred or so he pulled from his own stash, aren’t going to last forever. He has more in his cache at Amari’s clinic in Goodneighbour, but it looks like it's going to be sitting there for a while. 

“Ah! My redheaded friend! What are you doing back here so soon? You’ve fallin’ in love with our green jewel, haven’t you?” Vadim booms, when he catches sight of Deacon making his way to the bar’s counter. 

He’d like to think he’s just _that_ charming, but, like he said, no forgets a redhead.

Deacon gives Vadim a wide grin, “Get me a drink, my fine fellow, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Vadim pours him a couple fingers of the brother’s clear moonshine. “Here, something strong to drown your sorrows.”

“Throw some Nuka Cola in that, so it doesn’t eat a hole in my throat. You still want to hear my story, right?”

“You baby,” Vadim says with a laugh and cracks a Nuka-Cola for Deacon. 

After Deacon takes his first swallow, the radiation and moonshine burning down his throat, Vadim leans forward on the bar, eager for a story. 

“I look like I know what I’m doing, right?” Deacon starts. “I mean I look like I’m a good merc/caravan guard/handsome son-of-a-bitch? Right?”

“Absolutely!” Vadim agrees with a laugh. Deacon knows he likes a story he can interact with.

“I’ve been in this line of work for ten years now, I know what I’m worth. 250 caps, minimum. Plasma cells aren’t cheap. Good caravan guards aren’t cheap. Experience isn’t cheap. But you know what is? _Caravaners._ I have never met one whose wasn’t so tight they squeaked. Frankly, I’m surprised the sound doesn’t alert more raiders that it does.”

Vadim laughs again, long and loud. See, this is why he liked the man, he can bullshit with the best of them.

“So there I am, at this old Red Rocket station south of town, telling this caravaner what he’ll get for 250 caps (round trip, I might add), when this slip of a kid, who couldn’t have been more than 19, shows up with a rifle, some hodge-podge raider armor, and under bids me by 100 caps!” Deacon takes another swallow of his Nuka Cola and moonshine.

“No!”

“Yes! I couldn’t believe it! The gall of this kid. Ya know, I might be impressed with his guts if it didn’t mean I was out of a job. I tried to convince the caravaner that taking the kid on instead of me was a recipe for disaster, but the greedy bastard wouldn’t listen to reason. So expect Diamond City to be a bit short on scrap for a while because I fully expect raiders to tear that caravan apart.”

“Well, that’s capitalism for you, my friend. Best price wins the job, even if it gets the customer killed.”

Deacon raises his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

The bar is quiet this time of day and though Vadim leaves for a few minutes to attend the only other two customers in the place, he finds his way back to Deacon. Deacon knows he's the most interesting thing the place at the moment. A merc with a sense of humour is a rare thing.

“What your plans now, red?”

“Well, since you can’t come up with a more original nickname than that of my hair colour, I figure introductions are in order.” Deacon holds his hand out. “Name’s Rhett.”

Vadim’s grip is firm, calloused, and dry. 

“As for my plans, not really sure at this point. Being a caravan guard is good money, but it's also really dull. Thing is, honest merc work is hard to come by these days, what with the Gunners and their choke hold on the market. Maybe I’ll try up in Goodneighbour, I hear they’re under new management.” Deacon shrugs like he right at the moment he really doesn’t care where the wind blows him to.

“You know, there is bounty board in town. Used to be on the wall here, but Yefim did not like the ‘crowd’ it brought it. Caps are caps in my book, but…” Vadim shrugs. “Family, no? Anyways, there are a few people here looking for the sort of help that a man of your talents could provide. Might not be the excitement you are looking for since Diamond City Security handles, well, the security, and people take mysteries and missing people to Valentine, but you’ll get paid. Then, maybe, you can go to Goodneighbour.”

“But, only after I clean up Diamond City’s messes?”

Vadim gives him a grin a mile long. “Of course!”

“Then, I guess I need a room. And another drink.”

\- - - - -

October 30th, 2283

Report 1 – Operation: ‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t have a ham.”

Still alive, Dez.

-Deacon

P.S. We need to work on our secrecy in regards to Goodneighbour. They all know Amari is our agent.

// 

November 28th, 2283

Report 2 – Operation: ‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t have a ham.’

Boys and girls, there is definitely something hinky going on in this town.

There have been four kidnappings this year. Not that unusual for the Commonwealth, sure, but the thing that is strange is that all of them were reported to DCS and all were ignored. There doesn’t seem to by any explanation for this, other than DCS is overtaxed, but I’m calling bullshit on that one. Can’t fib and fibber.

I’ve gotten in pretty good with DC’s resident reporter and troublemaker, Ms. Piper Wright. She’s convinced the lack of action has something to do with the Mayor, but I’m withholding judgment at this time. The guy is clearly a power-hungry dickhead, but that doesn’t mean he’s maliciously ignoring the people of DC. The kidnappings are all Lower-fielders, and like any politician, the Mayor bows only to the powerful -i.e. the Upper-standers, and they couldn’t care less about what happens to the plebeians on the field.

DC’s resident synth detective (FYI do NOT call him a ‘robot dick’ -one of the DCS guys did a couple days ago and he’s still having to ice that burn), Nick Valentine, investigated all four cases and found that one was a fabrication (the guy sent a ransom note in an attempt to get caps), the other was a runaway (just a lost soul who found peace in the embrace of Goodneighbour’s best chems, one of the Commonwealth’s oldest tales). As for those last two, one’s still ongoing, and the other is unsolved. Possibly The-Big-Bad-I’s handy work, or possibly some raiders killed the poor soul when the ransom wasn’t forthcoming fast enough.

Still, the DCS’s lack of action is odd. They should have done at least a token investigation. I’ll keep an eye on it.

-Deacon

\- - - - -

It’s mid-December and there’s snow on the ground.

It’s not much, granted, and it won’t stick around long, but it’s there all the same. It’s the only real indicator that Christmas is just around the corner, but it won't be a white one. These days, that title is relegated to the classic movie, because the Commonwealth never gets that much snow anymore. 

The colder temperatures also mean that the bounty work that has been keeping Deacon in the black has dried up. He’s down to a measly 200 caps. He’s going to ask for a cheaper rent at the Dugout Inn as his Christmas present, because as it is, he’s not going to be able to afford another month here, let alone have enough caps to buy food and ammo. If he doesn’t find work soon, he’ll have to head up to Bunker Hill and get on with caravan until the cold weather has taken its leave. Which isn’t going to make him a very effective spy, but without access to his own cap stores, he won’t have any other choice.

He’s just come from Piper’s house. He was hoping she was planning an out-of-town excursion that might call for his skills (Deacon’s escorted her out of Diamond City a couple of times; the first because she was gathering a story on The U.P. Deathclaws and their anti-synth propaganda and she needed a scary looking merc to watch her back. She was pleasantly surprised by his covert abilities and knack for disappearing and reappearing just when she needed it most, that when another story took her to Quincy she’d asked him to watch her back, and pick up a little intel while he was chatting up the waitress in the bar), but she’s busy with some new story in town. Fighting the good fight, as Three Dog used to say.

He likes that about her, despite her dogged determination to get to the truth on every single issue, person, and story that comes her way -Deacon’s of the firm belief that there are some truths that should stay buried (but not hoarded; he’s never agreed with The Brotherhood). However, she’s a good person, and even better, she’s committed to making the Commonwealth a better place. There aren’t enough of those kind of people these days and it's Diamond City’s extreme good fortune to have two of them in one city.

Three actually. He’s pretty sure Nick Valentine wouldn’t be half as effective as a detective if it weren’t for Ellie Perkins.

“Ugh! I swear to God if Marty calls me ‘baby doll’ one more time in a report, I’ll cold cock him.” Ellie says as she slams her Nuka Cola down on Deacon's table and takes the vacant chair. The Dugout is pretty busy this evening, it’s about the only one left. “If we weren’t so damn busy these days, I’d ask Nick to get rid of him, but I just can’t bear the thought of Nick being out there all alone.”

“Someone else go missing?”

“Thankfully, no, but they still haven’t closed the Long girl case -every day that goes by, it looks more and more like The Institute, but Nick isn’t convinced.” She sighs. “The holidays are our busiest time of year, unfortunately. Lots of people skip town with the caps meant to buy presents, or go on a drunken sightseeing excursion out of town, or have an argument with the family and run away to Goodneighbour. I’ll probably scream if I hear that ‘Of the people, for the people’ slogan one more time.” She takes a swallow of her Nuka Cola and calms somewhat. “I grew up in that town and it isn’t something to be running off too. It’s a hellhole, inside and out.”

“I don’t know,” Deacon says as she lights a cigarette; he grabs an ashtray from a nearby table with a grin at its occupants. “That new mayor seems to be good for the place. The neighbourhoods around there are safer than they’ve been for months.”

Ellie’s not convinced. “He’s just like all the other assholes who’ve run that place. He’ll get a little power, someone will try and take it from him, and then blood will flow in the streets. Where will their ‘Of the people, for the people’ mantra be then, hmm?” She takes a long drag and blows out a stream of smoke. “Sorry. That’s been building for a while, I didn’t mean to dump it all on you, Rhett.”

“No problem. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things people just ‘dump’ on me. Must be my friendly face.” Deacon gives her a wide smile.

“It’s because you actually _listen_. There so many people in this place that just want to someone to hear them, even if there’s nothing they can do help. The simple fact that someone heard and empathized means a lot. It’s the reason Nick is so busy lately; he listens and so do you.” She taps the ash from the end of her cigarette and gets more comfortable in her chair. “Though, your good looks certainly don’t hurt things.”

Deacon laughs. “I knew it! I’m just a pretty face to you. And hey, after staring at Valentine’s mug all day long, who can blame you?”

“Nick’s face grows on you. Especially after you realize he’s got a heart of gold.” Ellie’s eyes get far away then like she’s flashing through a slide show of all the detective’s good deeds. From everything Deacon’s heard, she might be gone for a while. 

For all the hate that is thrown synth’s way, Nick Valentine is far and away the Commonwealth’s most trusted synthetic man. In all the time he’s been in Diamond City and all the people he’s spoken to, it’s clear that Valentine’s honest acceptance of who and what he is has earned the respect of the majority of the city’s populace. There are still holdout outs, people who have suffered at the hands of The Institute that still don't trust that Valentine has anything to do with that boogeyman, but the support he has far outweighs the suspicion.

It only strengthens Deacon’s belief that The Railroad’s practice of wiping the memories, thoughts, the very thing that made a synth want to be something more than an Institute slave -there very _soul_ \- and replacing that with the memories and personality of deceased human (or worse, fabricated altogether) is the wrong way to go about integrating synths into the Wastes. For all the moral superiority The Railroad claims, he finds that practice abhorrent. Deacon knows they do it protect the synths from being reclaimed by The Institute, but not only are they destroying the very thing that makes a synth human, they are also setting them up for a long, hard fall. 

He knows, all too well, what it’s like to live your whole life believing a truth you thought was beyond question, only to suddenly find out that everything you knew about your world was a lie. It’s hard to find trust again after that. In yourself and in others.

Ultimately, the only way to fix the situation is to destroy The Institute, but that’s not his place; he didn’t come to the Commonwealth to be its saviour.

“So,” Ellie says, bringing his attention back to her as she crushes her cigarette out, “any plans for Christmas?”

“If you’re, not so subtly, asking if I’ve got family, the answer is no. I fly solo during the holidays.” Ellie nods; these days her only family is Valentine. “If you want to know if I’m sticking around Diamond City, that depends on whether or not I still have caps left at the end of the week.”

Ellie’s face falls a bit. “Work’s dried up?”

“Uhhuh. I’ll have to head up to Bunker Hill and get on with a caravan for the winter if things don’t turn around. Not my preferred kind of work, but a man’s gotta eat. Actually, I could really go for some mac and cheese right about now.” Deacon cranes his neck, looking for Scarlett -she still doesn’t know why Deacon finds their names funny.

Ellie laughs. “Well, I hope you find something here. If you go, who will I dump all my frustrations on?”

“I thought you said your boss was a world-class listener.”

“He’s got enough problems. He doesn’t need my woes as well.”

“Hey, you find me work, beautiful, and I’ll gladly listen to all your woes.”

Ellie smiles at the compliment and it makes Deacon’s heart ache a little. She reminds him so much of Amata. Sometimes it’s hard to even look at her with all that dark hair and her soft brown eyes. She has the same kind of compassion that drove Amata and the same spine of steel. Ellie’s not afraid of life’s hard decisions, nor a stranger to its heartache; Valentine is lucky to have her. 

There’s a Diamond City guard searching the bar for someone. Deacon’s had him pegged the moment he arrived. When Vadim directs him toward their table, Deacon lets a hand slide down to rest on his thigh, near his plasma pistol.

“Ellie,” the guard gasps as he comes up to their table. His helmet is tucked under one arm, showing a healthy face with blue eyes and dark hair.

“Tom!” Ellie blurts out, a blush darkening her cheeks slightly. Aw, that’s so cute! Deacon relaxes slightly. 

“Where’s Nicky? I went by the agency, but he’s not there.”

Ellie’s a little taken aback by the urgency in the man’s voice. “Uh, he and Marty left this morning on a case. I expected them back today, but maybe it’s taking longer than they thought. Why? What’s wrong?”

Another DC guard appears at the bar’s door. Tom looks over his shoulder and shakes his head. 

“There’s some gang just outside the city gates. They’ve got a girl with them who they’re claimin’ is a synth. It looks like the Long girl, Ellie.”

“Oh, no!” she breathes, hand coming up to cover her mouth.

“I thought maybe Nicky could, ya know, talk ‘em down, but…” Tom trails off. It’s not hard to imagine the rest of that sentence. 

The other guard calls out to Tom from across the bar, impatient. _Frightened._

“I gotta go, Ellie. Thanks anyways.”

Tom rushes out of the bar then and Deacon is already halfway out of his chair. He has to do something. That guard was scared of the situation brewing outside the gates, and synth or not, he can’t let an innocent die over some fool’s bigotry.

“Wait,” Ellie says from his elbow. She’s shoving her cigarettes and lighter into the pockets of her coat. “I’m going with you.”

Deacon sees that steel in her eyes and nods. He knows he won’t be able to talk her out of it. 

There’s a modest crowd gathered just outside the Diamond City gates: some traders, a few rubber-neckers, and what looks like the whole of Diamond City Security. Impatiently, Deacon shoves his way to the front, just behind the line of guards. Ellie following closely in his wake. There’s about a half a dozen U.P. Deathclaws (he knows that stylized claw on their armbands from his time in University Point helping with Kilo house) standing in a rough approximation of a horseshoe just in front of the baseball player statue that the people of Diamond City affectionately call ‘Sammy Swatter’. _What the hell are they doing this far north?_ Deacon wonders with some urgency. 

One guy, obviously the group's leader, is standing in the middle next to a young woman who is huddled, crying, on her knees as he rants at the growing crowd. 

“Oh God,” Ellie whispers at his side. “It’s Barbra Long.”

Deacon can’t make much sense of the guys rambling, but what he can understand past the man’s raving bigotry, is that the Deathclaws want to know which family the girl belongs to. They want them to watch as the Deathclaws rip Barbra apart to show them the evil of The Institute and its synths. The only thing such a barbaric horror is going to show anyone is that these men are monsters. As of yet, no one has stepped forward. If that’s an attempt to the save the girl’s life, or if, somehow, her family actually believes she is a synth and not worth saving, Deacon doesn’t know. Or care. Someone has to help her.

Deacon unholsters his plasma pistol and shoves his way through the guard’s line. Ellie whispers “Be careful.” at his back. Now that he's standing alone, in front of the crowd, the Deathclaws leader hones in on him. 

“Aw, look at you guys," Deacon says. "You think you’re all grown up, don’t cha? Moved on from graffiti and brahmin shit in paper bags to terrorizing innocent, young women. Your parents must be _so_ proud.”

“Fuck you, buddy,” the Deathclaws' leader snarls. “This ain’t no woman, it’s a synth. They aren’t people, like us. This one is a replacement for a real human, and we ain’t gonna let The Institute get away with this body snatching anymore more.”

Deacon snorts. “And how exactly is murdering an innocent going to stop The Institute? In all your _infinite_ wisdom, tell me, how does this prevent them from taking the people we love? ‘Cause, if you’ve got a plan, I’m all ears.”

“We’re gonna show The Institute that we know the difference between our family and friends and these-” the Claws' leader kicks Barbra’s shoulder, knocking her fully to the ground. Deacon's grip tightens on his plasma pistol. “-shitty copies those sons-of-bitches send us. If we kill enough of their robots, they’ll stop taking our families.”

Deacon lets out a burst of incredulous laughter. “Oh yes, because excessive violence is the answer to every problem; it worked so out well for the Old-World, didn’t it? You do see the mess they left us, right? This isn’t some Med-X fueled dream I’m in.”

There’s a shuffling in the ranks of the Deathclaws. Perhaps they aren’t all as committed to being murderers as their leader is. Deacon hopes this doesn’t have to end in a fire-fight.

Another voice speaks up then and the crowd of bystanders parts to let the newcomer through. There’s a ripple of murmuring that passes through them; Nick, Nicky, _Valentine_ , it says. 

“And what’ll you do if you find out she isn’t a synth? Will you be able to live with yourselves knowing you killed an innocent?”

Valentine stops some five feet from Deacon. He gives Deacon a quick glance, his yellow eyes glowing in the gathering dark, before giving his full attention to the Claws' leader.

“She’s a synth. Nothing innocent about her,” the leader snaps, but the men behind him don’t seem convinced. Especially faced with proof that not all synths are things to be feared. 

“Walk away,” Valentine says, ignoring the comment. “Nobody has to get hurt.”

“Fuck you.” The leader turns to his men, “We do this now,” he says, but none of them move. He pulls out a knife and stalks toward one of the Claws. He grabs the man by the collar of his jacket and points the knife at the rest of the men. “I _said_ , we do this now.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea, T.” A Claw further down the line speaks up. “They might just shoot us.”

“Oh, we’ll definitely shoot you if you make one move on that girl,” Deacon says cheerfully, channeling a little Moira in his voice. He talking about Valentine and himself. He saw the flash of a gun barrel in the city’s spotlight as the synth made his way over. He doesn’t expect they can count on Diamond City Security if this goes south. “But if you want to live long enough to go home to your mommies and daddies and your snuggly little teddy bears, you better leave. _Now._ ” 

The Claws' leader lets go of the member he was holding and heads for the dissenting voice in the line. “Are you going to let this merc asshole tell The Deathclaws what to do?”

“Hey! I’m not an asshole! Totally a merc, though. No qualms about killing you, if you’re, ya know, wondering.”

There is a murmuring of discontent among The Deathclaws.

“Fine. Fuck this.” The Deathclaws' leader turns and lunges for the girl. Maybe he decided that it would be better to die by his convictions than to show weakness and live. 

Two shots ring out in front of the Diamond City's gates. The loud _crack_ of a large caliber handgun and the high-pitched whir of a plasma weapon. The U.P. Deathclaws' leader falls to the pavement, a sucking bullet wound on the right side of his chest and a sizzling plasma hole on the other. 

“Beat it,” Valentine snaps at the rest of The Deathclaws and they scramble to comply.

Deacon lets Valentine handle helping Barbra to her feet; she probably knows his face -who doesn’t?- and checks on the Claws' leader. He wants to make sure the guy's dead. And hey, maybe he has a few caps on him. A reward for a good deed. Deacon crouches down and is about to check for a pulse when a commotion behind him turns his head.

Barbra’s family has rushed out of the crowd and embraced her, laughing and crying. It’s a good scene. _Aces._ Ellie has come forward too, Marty Bullfinch in tow, and is giving Valentine a wide, grateful smile. Deacon turns back to the task at hand, but he doesn’t get a chance to complete it. A knife swings into his field of vision. 

The dying Deathclaws' leader lets loose a wet growl as he tries to plunge the knife into Deacon’s throat. Deacon reels back far enough that the knife misses its target, glances off the hardened leather armor sewn into his bomber jacket, and finds the soft, unprotected area between the first two ribs on Deacon’s upper chest -a little left of his zipper. He grunts in pain and surprise. 

Times slows as a rush of adrenaline hits his system. Deacon can make out every line of hatred carved into the man's face and the way the light is slowly dying in his eyes. It feels like he’s moving through water as he brings his plasma pistol to the Deathclaws' leaders chest and fires; point blank range. 

The high-pitched whir of his plasma pistol alerts Valentine and Ellie to the fight that he’s in. It also brings Deacon’s world back to normal speed. There’s a gaping, fist-sized hole in the Claws leader’s chest, dripping plasma induced gore and blood. Finally, the man releases the knife, so Deacon can fall back from him.

“Oh my God! Rhett!” Ellie scrambles to his side.

Blood is starting to ooze out from under the embedded knife and he feels short of breath. It’s like A3-21’s hand is around his throat again.

“Don’t touch it,” Valentine says from Deacon’s other side as Ellie’s hand flutters up to the knife. “You’ll only make it worse. I’ll carry him, you go get Sun. Tell him what happened.”

Ellie nods and dashes off. Distantly, Deacon can hear a harsh, gravelly voice telling the crowd to make way as Valentine lifts him. The world’s sounds fade away then, replaced by a hollow, ringing noise. He gets lightheaded. Suddenly, Deacon’s feels nauseated and cotton fills his mouth. In his head, his dad’s voice calmly informs him he’s going into shock. 

_Hey, dad_ , he thinks somewhat deliriously, _I’ve missed your voice._

It’s getting harder to breathe. 

When sound returns again, he can hear Valentine muttering above him. “Goddamn, greedy mercs.”

Deacon’s mildly offended. “Not greedy,” he gasps out. “Checking to see…if he was still alive.”

“What? With your neck? Kid, you sure gotta a funny way of going about it.”

“Distracted by that…heart-warming scene. Sucker for...happy endings.”

“Aren’t we all? Now stop talking before you miss yours.”

Doctor Sun is waiting for them in the Mega Surgery Center. As Valentine jostles him down the narrow staircase, Deacon feels a trickle of something wet and warm slide down his cheek. Blood is starting to pool in his throat and he swallows to try and clear his airway. He hears Valentine curse and he wants to say something witty about how he’s survived worse, but there just isn’t enough air in his lungs to make it possible. His vision starts to get hazy along the edges and he barely registers as Valentine lays him on Sun’s gurney.

He figured his life would be flashing before his eyes right about now, but all he sees in the naked bulb on the ceiling of this pit and dust particles floating in the air. He’s profoundly disappointed. 

_Dad, where are you?_

The world slides into black.

“What the hell happened?” Sun barks as Nick steps back.

“Kid took a knife checking on the liveliness of some gang member. He swears he wasn’t looking for caps.”

Ellie huffs a laugh; her eyes are wet. “Oh, Rhett. You _idiot_.”

Sun quickly examines the knife wound and shakes his head. “It nicked an artery. If you’d pulled it out, he’d be dead.” Sun grabs a couple stimpaks from the small table next to the gurney. “He still may not make. I’ll need your help, Mr. Valentine.”

“Where?”

He hands Nick one of the stimpaks and kicks the small table out of the way. It rolls and hits the concrete wall. Nick steps into its place. “On my mark, I want you to pull down the zipper and shove this in as close as you can get to the knife.” Sun wraps one hand around the hilt of the knife to hold it steady, while his other holds the stimpak poised. “Now.”

Nick yanks down the bomber’s zipper and jabs the stimpak through the flannel of Rhett’s shirt, right next to the blade of the knife, and presses the plunger. Sun, gives the stimpak five seconds to start repairing the damaged tissue before he pulls the knife out and injects the other stimpak. There is a small leaking of blood as the wound sluggishly starts to close. 

“Ms. Perkins,” Sun says, voice harsh and focused, “Grab that blanket and cover him with it. Mr. Valentine, use that toolbox to prop his legs up.” 

They both jump to fill the doctor’s command as Sun turns Rhett’s head to the side. Blood drips out his mouth onto the gurney. Sun then grabs his bandage scissors from the table he kicked away and shoving Rhett’s jacket open further, he slices open the flannel shirt to get a better look at the wound. The knife was undoubtedly a filthy thing (the stimpaks should kill any bacteria that managed to make it into the wound), and it’s a red, nasty looking mark; however, Sun can’t risk another stimpak. Rhett's body is struggling to metabolize the two it has already got in its system and because he's in shock right now, another may kill him. 

Ellie and Nick watch with grim faces as Sun grabs a saline bag from one of the drawers in the metal cabinet and yanks an IV pole, that was sitting the corner of the room, over. Sun cannibalizes one of the spent stimpak needles, dunks it in a shot glass full of Bobrov’s Best, and uses it to establish a saline drip. He doesn’t have the equipment here to determine blood type, so a blood pack is out of the question; Rhett will just have to survive on his own. Sun’s fairly sure the stimpaks have repaired the artery enough to prevent any more internal bleeding, but he can’t be certain. Under a stimpak’s guidance, superficial wounds heal quicker than internal ones to prevent a patient from bleeding out, and in a case like this, there’s nothing to do but wait and see if he lives ‘til morning.

\- - - - -

Deacon wakes to the low buzzing of electricity through a light bulb and its bright light searing the inside of his eyelids. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter to try and block the light out. He takes a deep breath. It hurts, but it’s glorious. What’s more, there’s the scent of freshly burnt cigarette smoke on the air and Deacon loves that smell. He doesn’t smoke himself, seems silly to try a kill yourself self with those slender rolls of leaves and paper when the Wasteland was more than happy to do it for you, but he’s always loved that crisp, smoky smell. 

It was the best part of travelling with Jericho. The only good thing really; that was not a happy time. He remembers how delighted the old raider was to help him heap a whopping dose of revenge on The Brotherhood Outcasts, and glee he took in shooting out their fusion cores simply because it resulted in a spectacular explosion. 

Deacon brings a heavy hand up to shield his eyes from the light and opens them.

“You’re pretty stubborn, kid. Sun didn’t think you’d make it,” a voice rumbles from his right. Deacon turns toward it and finds Valentine sitting on one of Doctor Sun’s metal cabinets, smoking a cigarette. 

“What time is it? Better yet, what _day_ is it?” Deacon asks, his voice ragged and dry. He has to fight against the rusted tin can taste that seems to be permanently lodged in his mouth.

“It’s 11:22 pm, Wednesday, December 14th, 2283.”

He’s been out a whole day and night. Well, that’s certainly better than two weeks. Maybe he’s getting better that the whole ‘almost dying, but not’ thing. Deacon searches for the knife wound on his chest and finds it covered in a patch of gauze. Then, he notices his flannel shirt is sliced in half. Damn. He really liked this one, too.

“The doc didn’t think you could handle a third stimpak until you’d regained consciousness, so that’s still a pretty ugly wound, right now.”

“Where is the good doctor? I could really use something to drink and that other stimpak.” The knife wound burns on every intake of breath.

“Sleeping, I expect.” Valentine pops the top on a can of purified water and waits for Deacon to prop himself up a bit before handing it to him. “He spent all yesterday night and today in here with you. I volunteered to keep watch tonight.”

Deacon slowly drinks the water, knowing he could make himself sick if he guzzles the entire can. He really wants to, though.

“Aw,” Deacon coos, “Look at you, in here watching out for the greedy merc. Ellie was right, Nick Valentine has a heart of gold.”

Valentine smirks. “After all the hard work Sun put into saving you, it would be a shame to let it go to waste; especially after what you did for Barbra Long. Greedy merc or not, looks like we share that ‘heart of gold’.”

“ _Stop._ You’re making me blush.”

Valentine shakes his head with a smile and stands to crush his finished cigarette on the floor. He picks up the filter and shoves it in his pocket -huh, not a lot of people would bother with that. Valentine grabs the stimpak Sun left for him to give to Deacon if he awoke, and hands it over. Deacon sits up fully and gently pulls back the tape securing the gauze. Valentine is right, it’s not a pretty sight. After psyching himself up a bit, telling himself it won’t hurt _that_ bad, Deacon injects the last stimpak near the bottom edge of the wound. He hisses at the pain, but after about 30 seconds, the burn on every intake of breath leaves.

The ugly red turns into a swath of pink, with a slight mottling of yellow and brown, as the wound fully knits itself back together, inside and out. In a couple of weeks, it’ll fade to white, but there’ll always be a scar there. Just above his heart. 

“You ready to get outta here?” Valentine asks as Deacon stands.

He’s a little unsteady on his feet as he grabs his bomber jacket from where it’s draped over a chair. “You have no idea,” he says. His plasma pistol and hunting knife are next to it. Deacon checks his pants and is relieved that the holotape is still in his pocket. “I feel like I haven’t eaten anything in a week.” He’s absolutely _starving._

Valentine points to a little Vault-Tec lunch box sitting on stairs. “Ellie sent that. Figured you’d be hungry when you woke.”

Inside is the best looking sweet roll he has ever seen. It’s so large that it takes up all the free space inside the lunch box and it’s soft and covered in a white icing and _oh my God_ it tastes even better than it looks. Deacon stuffs his face as he climbs the stairs.

“Tell Ellie that she needs to marry me. Like pronto! Forget that DCS goon, I’ll sweep her off her feet if she’ll make these for the rest of her life.”

Behind him, Valentine chuckles. “Don’t count on it.”

“Naw, you’re right,” Deacon says as he steps out into the market. The chilly air sweet and tasting faintly of noodles. “She’s _way_ too good for me.”

“No arguing that,” Valentine says and locks the door to the Mega Surgery Center. He pockets the key. God, the people of Diamond City have such trust in this synth. “You okay to get back to the Dugout on your own?”

Deacon nods. “Not sure I’m ready to face Vadim’s booming voice, but I’m _aces_ after that sweet roll. Forget stimpaks, that’s the real healer.”

“I’ll tell Ellie she needs to go to into business, then.”

“Absolutely! I’ve already got her slogan: ‘A sweet roll! A sweet roll! My _kingdom_ for a sweet roll!’ Pretty good, right? Intellectual, but not out of range your average Waster. Appeals to everyone, just like the pastry itself.”

Valentine laughs. “’Withdraw my lord; I’ll help you to a sweet roll’.”

“Another lover of the Bard, alright! Wait, are we besties now?”

Valentine waves him off then with an amused grin and starts out across the market. “See you around, kid. And try not to get yourself killed, might not be there next time to pull your ass outta the fire.”

“With your savior’s complex, Valentine? I doubt it.”

Deacon rounds the Mass Surgery Center, but instead of heading back toward the noise of the Dugout Inn, he waits, pressed up against the cold metal of the building. He needs to head out to the old Boston Police Rationing Site, but he’s got to make sure that Valentine is good and gone before he heads to the city’s gates.

Deacon uses the old terminal there to type up his reports and then load them on to the stash of holotapes he keeps onsite. It’s too soon for his monthly report, but he needs more information on the movements of The U.P. Deathclaws. They shouldn’t be this far north and he wants to know how or why they thought the Long girl was a synth. He’s got a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time Diamond City sees the Claws and Deacon wants to be prepared for whatever bullshit they come up with next. Plus, if the Claws were so bold as to stage such a scene outside Diamond City, he can only image the kind of shit that is currently going on at University Point.

Deacon dances back and forth on his toes, trying to shake the cold off. With his flannel shirt a ruined mess under his bomber jacket, it’s not doing that great a job of keeping him warm. However, Deacon knows that if he goes into the Dugout Inn to grab another one, Vadim won’t let him out again and this is too important to put off for another day. Not when he’s already been out for one.

When he’s sure Valentine is tucked safely back in his agency, Deacon slips out of the city.

He dashes off a quick inquiry about The Deathclaws and puts the holotape under the little lip of the bus stop bench nearby. The recent, wet snowfall has partially rubbed out the railsign marking this as a dead drop, so Deacon grabs the little piece of chalk he keeps tucked next to where he puts the holotape and fixes it up. Then, he lights the lantern in the trailer where the terminal sits, wipes all the evidence of his report from it and returns to Diamond City.

\- - - - -

December ~~14th~~ 15th, 2283

Operation: ‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t have a ham.’

Re: Information Request

Early last night, UP Deathclaws staged a scene outside of DC. They threatened to kill a young woman they suspected was a synth replacement. I am requesting any and all mission briefs and reports concerning the Claws, their activities in UP, and any sightings outside that area. Is Kilo safe?

-Deacon

//

December 18th, 2283

From HQ

Re: Information Request

Request noted. Will gather all available information and return within one week. Alpha wants a full report. Kilo is not safe.

Don’t die out there.

-Desdemona

\- - - - -

Despite having slept all night and day after being stabbed by the Claws' leader, when Deacon returns to the Dugout Inn he crashes in his bed and sleeps another day away. He managed to get away from Vadim after he assured the man he was still alive, and to his bed with only a minimal amount of fuss. For the odd -often morbid- sense of humour that Bobrov brother had, he was fiercely protective of anyone he had claimed as a friend. It makes Deacon a bit uncomfortable. The friend Vadim is protective of is the merc ‘Rhett’ and he doesn’t exist.

That sensation of lingering discomfort only increases when Vadim hands him a jingling envelope the next evening when Deacon finally crawls out of bed for something to eat. ‘Rhett’ is written on the front in a neat script and inside is a note and a bunch of caps.

> Rhett,
> 
> After what you did for Barbra Long, Nick and I decided that you earned the commission for the case. I know 200 caps isn’t a lot, but maybe you’ll make it to Christmas now.
> 
> Ellie
> 
> P.S. I’m glad you enjoyed the sweet roll.

He manages a genuine smile anyways and after getting a large order of mac and cheese, talks Yefim into a lower rent rate. It’s not half as difficult as he thought it would be. Apparently, he’s earned some favour in the city after all.

By the time he hits Piper up for a card game, it’s been a little over a week since The Deathclaws incident and Deacon still hasn’t heard back from The Switchboard. He’s a little worried. Either it means that there is a lot of intel that needs to be gathered and sorted, or something really bad is currently going on with Kilo and they have their hands full dealing with that mess. Neither is very comforting. He hasn’t heard anything from the caravaner gossip in the Dugout Inn, so he hopes it’s the former.

A few days ago, Piper put out a really great piece on the incident with The Deathclaws. Though, Deacon thinks she made his role and near death in the whole thing way too dramatic. In her version, she makes it sound like Deacon and Valentine were the only line against a horde of monsters ready to sacrifice young woman on the altar of fear and hate, while Diamond City Security failed to protect the people they’re sworn to serve. Then, in a last, desperate act, the worse monster of them all tried to snuff out a beacon of light in a world of injustice but failed. Good trumps evil! Hoo-rah!

He won’t fault her for embellishing a story; hell, it's his favourite past time, but he doesn’t have to agree with it.

Piper should be in the middle of another article, actually, the one she was writing before the whole thing with The Deathclaws, but apparently writer's block is leaning hard and heavy on her right now and she can’t figure out how to finish. Currently, she’s eyeing him with a calculating look over the cards on the table and Deacon doesn’t like it -he’ll help her get a story any day of the week, but he won’t be one. The vain part of Deacon thinks he’d probably be the best story she’s ever had, though. 

Deacon covers the only free six with one of his sevens and prevents Piper from using it further deplete her deck. Piper shoots him a frown and he likes that look better that her calculating one. He grins and shrugs his shoulders. There is a reason the game is called _‘Spite and Malice’_. He used to pass whole afternoons playing this with Amata.

“How’s Nat?” Deacon asks as Piper uses a king in place of a five on one of the other piles and works up to the seven on her deck.

“Good. Smart. _Too_ smart, even. If that’s possible. She’s lightyears ahead of the other kids in school. Gettin’ hard to keep her attention. She wants to be here all the time, but I keep telling her that you gotta have book smarts as well as street smarts to make it as a journalist. Pretty sure that’s the only thing keeping her in that place.”

Deacon can relate to that. There were days when Mr. Brotch’s classes seemed to just drag on _and on_ , and all he wanted was to be left alone in the library to read holotape books. 

He picks up three cards to make his hand five again and begins his turn. “Maybe you should cut her school time in half. Half here with you, being a world-class journalist-” Piper snorts here. “-and the other half in school. Show her that it isn’t easy. Being a journalist, that is. School’s a breeze.”

“Huh, never pegged you as the intellectual type. Then again, you’ve done nothing but surprise me, Rhett. Might have to start rethinking my opinions on mercs.”

“Nah, don’t bother. I’m one of a kind.”

She laughs. “You’re one of _something_ , that’s for sure.” She watches Deacon finish his turn, thoughtful. “Thing is, I don’t want to take Nat out of school just yet, even part time until she’s a little older. Maybe next year when she’s ten. Until then, I’ll just have to deal with the detentions.”

“She’s a troublemaker, huh? Wonder where she gets that from.”

“Ya know, I haven’t the faintest,” Piper says with a grin and flips the final card in her deck; it’s a king. “Ha! I win. Again?”

Deacon stretches in his chair. “You still have writer’s block?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Deal ‘em.”

Just then, the door to Piper’s house opens after a brief knock and Nick Valentine enters. He brings a gust of cold air in with him before the door shuts. Standing on the stairs, he brushes off a fine dusting of snow. 

“Nick!” Piper says with genuine pleasure in her voice, “To what do I owe the honour?”

Valentine ducks his head slightly. “Actually, Piper, I’m looking for Rhett.”

“Oh?” 

_Uh oh_ , Deacon thinks with a grin, _he’s peaked her journalistic interest._

“And what does Diamond City’s greatest synthetic detective need of little, old me?”

“I wanna hire you. 250 caps still your going rate?”

In his head, Deacon gives a little shout of success. 

After his first month in Diamond City, Deacon knew that joining the DC Security was a waste of time. The people do not hold that group in great esteem. Besides, if he wanted to get down to the barracks for the latest gossip, it would be a simple thing to use a stealth boy and steal a uniform -the moment he looked like one of them, he’d be in. No, the place to be was in Valentine’s good graces. Because if Nick Valentine trusted you, _Diamond City trusted you._

Until now, he just wasn’t sure how to make that happen. Turns out, all he had to do was almost die.

“Sure is," Deacon says, "but what do you need me for? Thought you had a partner, Valentine.”

“Maybe I just enjoy your witticisms and Shakespeare quotes.”

“Ha! If you did, you’d be the first. But I’ll gotta warn you now, Mr. Valentine, flattery will get you everywhere. When do you want to head out?”

Valentine raises a brow. “You don’t even want to know what the job is?”

“If he doesn’t, I do,” Piper says. “Spill Nick. What do you need a merc for?”

Deacon shrugs “Nope. If you’ve got caps, you’ve got me. But hey, you might as well appease the lady’s curiosity.”

Valentine pulls a scrap of folded paper out of his pocket. It looks like the bottom quarter of a Nuka-Cola poster. “Found this on my door this morning,” he says and hands the paper to Deacon. Piper rolls her chair to his side to read over his shoulder.

> Valentine,
> 
> You want to see your little sidekick again, you’ll put 500 caps in a lunch box and leave it at the mailbox in Trinity Plaza. If you’ve seen our ‘gift’, you know we’re serious. You got 2 days.

“What gift?” Piper asks.

“This-” Valentine holds up a beaten and battered flask. There is a single, small caliber bullet lodged in it. “Doesn’t hold liquid anymore, but Marty considers it his good luck charm. You can see why. Never goes anywhere without it.”

Deacon hands the note back. “I take it you’re not going to pay the ransom.”

Valentine snorts. “Please. I never advise clients to pay ransoms. I’m not about to do it myself.”

“Right. Just let me grab some things and we can go,” Deacon stands. “Uh, where _are_ we going to, boss?”

“Boss, huh?”

“Hey, you pay for my illustrious services, you get the full package, and that includes my deference. Though, I reserve the right to whistle whatever I please.”

Piper groans. “Ugh, are you really going to make Nick listen to that crap? The same song, over _and over_ again! Nick, you might want to invest in ear plugs, or uh…whatever is your equivalent.”

Valentine chuckles. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, Piper.”

“You say that now, but come talk to me when this little quest is over. You’ll be signing a different tune, believe me. Or at the very least, you’ll be begging Rhett too.”

Deacon heads to the door. “You just don’t appreciate the classics. Meet you at the gate, boss?”

“Yeah, ten minutes.”

Piper is still trying to convince Valentine that Deacon’s choice song will drive him crazy as Deacon steps out into the snow.

\- - - - - 

Since the destruction of his ruck-sac in that alley outside of Postal Square, Deacon has had to come up with another way to carry the various items that are essential for a foray into the greater Commonwealth. He’s convinced his latest method is a stroke of genius: a repurposed tool belt.

He took a lot of the little pockets and tool loops of the thing and fashioned a few new leather pouches from the remnants of his old leather armour. It has a spot for stims, plasma cells (totally separate, he’s learned his lesson), a few caps, and a special loop that holds a single stealth boy -he brings one today, he’ll probably need it. To keep the belt light, and himself quiet, it’s only good, as-is, for a day trip. Any longer, and he has to take the backpack he found at the same time and pack other pesky things like food and water.

He’s kind of jealous of Valentine in that regard. The man doesn’t need to eat, or sleep, or drink. He smokes cigarettes without fear of dying from them and gets to spend all his caps on ammo. Deacon doesn’t think he’d trade places with Valentine if such a thing were possible, but it doesn’t stop him from wondering what that would be like. About what it’s like to be a synth. 

It’s only idle curiosity, of course, but an interesting prospect nonetheless.

Deacon finds Valentine waiting for him next to Sammy Swatter, smoking a cigarette. As they head out in a north-easterly direction, Valentine explains where they are going and details of the situation. 

After Valentine found the note and flask on his door this morning, he asked Ellie about Marty’s whereabouts. Ellie said that Marty had gone out to the old Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters the day before on behalf of Myrna at the Diamond City Surplus. According to what Marty had said to Ellie, Myrna was interested in the locations of any of the Commonwealth’s vaults for their salvage. Marty didn’t expect to be gone longer than a couple of days.

“Whoa, wait. Are you telling me, Crazy Myrna, paid the _synth_ detective’s partner to locate salvage for her? Okay, no offence, but I call bull. I mean, she thinks _I’m_ a synth, because I told her she was as lovely as Ms. Loy. I have to talk to Percy on the down-low if I want to trade there now.”

“You and me both,” Valentine chuckles and flicks his finished cigarette into some rubble. The light dusting of snow douses it with a hiss. “Ellie thought it was strange at the time too, but he vanished before she could question him further.”

Valentine then asked Ellie to talk with Myrna about it to see if she could confirm the story. The proprietor of Diamond City Surplus reacted about as well as Deacon figured she would to such an inquiry: i.e. shrilly. When Ellie returned, she said her ears were still ringing from the vehement denial Myrna gave. Thing was, Marty was very specific about going to the Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters. He made sure that Ellie wrote it down so she would remember it. As such, it begged the question: why lie about what is he doing but not where he was going? And why include someone in your lie that clearly didn’t belong in the story?

Deacon thought this Marty guy needed a few tips on how to craft a believable tale.

“Or maybe,” Deacon mused. “that was the point. If something did go south, the story wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny and the cavalry could be called.”

“That’s what I figured, but it also makes me wary about what we’re walking into when we get to that Vault-Tec place. If Marty felt he had to lie about what he was doing and whom he was doing it for, I can’t imagine it’ll be anything good.”

Deacon gives Valentine a grin. “That’s what I’m here for. One instant, plasma toting and bad-guy goading, merc: just add caps.”

They are well past the Boston Public Library by the time they run into their first raiders, but it’s nothing the two of them can’t handle. Deacon hesitates to call it easy because that’s just asking for real problems to start, but it's no more taxing than what he did consider a regular run back when he was part of Ticonderoga. In honor of his former partner, Deacon starts whistling. Much too, what will undoubtedly be Piper’s dismay, the only comment Valentine makes about Deacon’s choice of songs is:

“Always preferred _‘Manhattan Beach’_ myself.”

Deacon can’t help but laugh, not only is Piper going to be _supremely_ disappointed, but there hasn’t been anyone in the Commonwealth with such great taste since Deacon himself. He’s unspeakably delighted to find someone who gets his references. He’ll probably have to dig deep into his recollection of pre-war books and movies to pull out something that might stump the good detective. 

As they near the old Park Street subway station, the raiders start to thin out and the snow stops. Good thing too, Deacon thinks, because he doesn’t know what the hell kind of hand cannon that Valentine packs, but he does know that the ringing in his ears isn’t going to stop anytime soon. It packs a hell of a punch for such a small thing, blasting giant, gaping wounds in the raiders that attack them. He wonders if Valentine will let him look at it. Deacon could probably cut its noise down with the right materials.

Then again, the noise probably doesn’t bother Valentine. He doesn’t have delicate, fleshy ears that don’t react well to constant loud noises. How Marty can stand it, Deacon hasn’t the foggiest.

Once they reach Park Street Station (carefully avoiding the Swan's Pond), Valentine stops.

“So, I’m not a hundred percent sure where we go from here,” he says. “Never had occasion to visit the Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters -in this world or the one before. Someone once told me it was northeast of the Park Street Station, so keep your eyes peeled for any signs as we go.” 

“Can do, boss man.”

True to Valentine’s roots, as both a synth and a detective, they take the methodical approach and search the streets one by one, working in a north-eastern angle until they either find the Vault-Tec building or hit the Charles River. Two hours pass before Deacon thinks he finds the building they’re looking for.

“Hey Valentine,” Deacon says. “I think this is it.” He brushes off some dirt and dust from the faded blue metal of the building. There’s a faint outline where letters used to be bolted. “What do you think? That say ‘Vault-Tec’?”

Valentine squints at it. “Could be. Only one way to find out.”

They head to the door. This would have been a lot easier if the snow had started falling yesterday because at least then they could have followed some tracks and ruled out a few buildings. However, the last snowfall had all but melted away before this one started and had likely covered any signs of struggle, blood, or bullet marks that might have indicated the building they were looking for. Still, they found it. Now to see what was inside.

Without power, the building’s automatic doors are more difficult to open than just your average locked door. Deacon can pick a lock with ease. The way to open these doors is to force them back far enough until the failsafe mechanism kicks in and pulls the door back partially into its sheath. Sounds simple, right? It is in theory. Probably was, 200-years-ago when regular maintenance was the norm, but these days, between corrosive radiation dust, lack of lubrication, and plain old disuse, it’s not always easy.

And it’s always a two-person job, so Marty wasn’t here alone.

Deacon hooks his gloved hands into the divot that these sort of doors were manufactured with for this situation and starts to pull it backward. It’s easier than other doors Deacon has had to open in this manner, but it still scrapes and screeches as it slowly moves back. Valentine slips his hands into the small crack that Deacon has made and starts pulling the other half of the door open -they came to this arrangement though an unspoken agreement. There is always a chance that the first person loses their grip and the door slams shut breaking or, in the worse case, severing the fingers of the second person -mangled, or missing fingers, are an excellent indicator of a seasoned scaver. Valentine’s steel skeleton would stand up under the blow, should Deacon lose the door.

After a few moments of bracing and pulling, Deacon can feel the door catch in the failsafe mechanism and it starts to pull the door back without his aid. He lets go of it and steps back. Then, with a glance at Valentine, pulls his plasma pistol out and steps inside.

The gray light of the overcast afternoon pools in through the open doors. There is a single overhead light in the high ceiling that is still functioning. The lobby smells strongly of dust, disuse, burnt gun powder, and fresh decay. Deacon wrinkles his nose. A body is lying propped up against the reception desk, just ahead of them and next to a flight of stairs. Valentine checks it, but they both already know it isn’t Marty. That stupid getup, and the simple fact that it’s a ghoul points to the Triggermen. Deacon hates those guys.

Of all the things to emulate from the Old-World, they had to pick its very worst criminal element. As if the Commonwealth didn’t already have its fair share of assholes on power trips, it also has to suffer the assholes who think the Old-World assholes were the pinnacle of assholeliness. _Assholes._

“Marty, what have you gotten yourself into,” Valentine mutters as he examines the body.

Deacon looks over the room. There are quite a few bullet holes covering the walls next to the doors and a few splashes of blood that indicate, some at least, hit their targets. No shell casings on the floor, though. Someone was the clear victor here and had time to pick up the spent casings for reuse. Deacon spies a powered elevator in the corner and wonders why that still has power, but the doors don’t -he’ll never understand the priorities of the Old-World. Maybe there’s a terminal further in that also still has power.

Valentine stands and makes his own assessment of the room.

“Think he found what he was looking for?” Deacon asks as Valentine lights a cigarette.

“Marty? No idea. But someone here did. Think there’s still a working terminal in this dump?”

“In my experience, working terminals are usually in the offices of important people, and important people always have offices above the ground floor.”

They both look at the stairs. The first landing is covered in debris from a collapsed section of the second floor.

“There’s probably another way up somewhere else,” Deacon says. “Another set of stairs or another collapsed section of ceiling.”

Valentine shoots him a smirk, blowing out a curl of smoke. “What? You don’t want to chance the elevator, kid?”

“And end up trapped for the next 200 hundred years in a 4x4 box? I know I come off as devil-may-care, but strangely enough, I don’t _actually_ want to die. Weird, I know, but there it is.”

“Given that less than five minutes after I met you, you were dying, kid, I’d say it’s a little more than strange.”

Deacon holds his hands up in an exaggerated shrug (his knife wound twinges at the action; the healed muscles still not back up to their usual flexibility), plasma pistol hanging from one finger. “What can I say? I’m a contradiction.”

“No argument here. Come on, let's keep moving.” 

Valentine leads them down a short hall next to the receptionist desk and in what was the building’s break room, there is another section of collapsed floor that had created a ramp, of sorts, to the second floor. When they’ve scrambled to the top, damp boots slipping on the smooth surface of the floor tiles, they find another Triggerman, face down in the doorway of the upper room; a pool of coagulated blood beneath him, and his hat a crumpled mess. Deacon and Valentine step gingerly over his body, trying to avoid treading in the blood.

Further down a hall that opens to a balcony that looks out over the ground floor reception, there is a support pillar that has been fashioned into a peninsula of sorts. Bullet holes pepper the surface. The dead Triggerman’s adversary was likely taking cover here as they fought. There is a small pool of blood on the ground behind the pillar. The guy was injured, but not fatally. 

Ahead, there are two hallways that split in a V-shape. Valentine goes right first. There is a washroom, stairs to another level, and an old communal office space. No working terminals there. They double back and check out the left section of the hall. If they don’t find anything there is always another floor to check; however, they do. The first door on the right holds a working terminal in a private office that seems to have been spared the level of damage the rest of the building has seen. Valentine takes a seat at the desk. Deacon stands at the narrow end of the desk and plants his hands on the surface, watching as Valentine hacks into the terminal.

Sticking out from under a small fan that is on the desk, is a small, slip of paper. Deacon picks it up and sees a login name and password scrawled in a messy hand. He’s about to show it to Valentine when the computer gives its little welcoming chime. Well, someone knows their way around a terminal. Deacon holds up a scrap of paper for Valentine to see anyways. 

“Marty not the hacker type?” he asks.

Valentine takes the paper and gives it a quick look before tucking it in a pocket. “No. He doesn’t have the…patience for it.” He turns back to the screen and scrolls through a few entries. Deacon holds his breath. He hopes Vault 111’s location isn’t on that terminal. “Well, I’d say this place is definitely the old Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters. These logs mention three vaults in this area: 95, 111, and 114. No locations, though-” Deacon relaxes. Good. “-This guy was some kind of doctor and he wasn’t happy about the experiments that Vault-Tec was performing on the residents. He was going to resign October 23rd.”

“ _Ouch._ A day late and a dollar short, too bad for him. Anything else?”

“Yeah…” Valentine squints at the screen. “There’s an un-named file here; it was created yesterday.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, boss.”

“All it says is ’35 Court. 13th floor.’”

“Well, that’s kind of ominous. _13th floor._ Spooky.” Deacon lowers his voice somewhat and says in a monotone manner, “ _’There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow-’_ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Valentine cuts in with a laugh, “Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Where do you know all this stuff from, kid? I was pretty sure the bombs destroyed all that.”

“Isn’t it obvious, boss? I’m a time traveller. Sent here from the past to observe the society that forms after we light the world ablaze with nuclear fire. Gotta say, for the most part, _pretty_ disappointed. Kinda thought there be more, ‘let’s help each other out of the ashes’ and less ‘kill everything’, ya know?”

Valentine gives him a calculating look, but after a moment seems to think pressing Deacon on his past can wait for another time. “I’d say you’ve been looking in the wrong places. It's not that bad from where I’m standing. Could be better, true. But, that’s true of any time.”

“An optimist, eh? You’re a rare breed, Valentine. And hey, guess what? I know where 35 Court is.” Boy does he ever. “It's an office building over by the Customs House Tower, east of here.”

“Then let’s go. I’d rather not be wandering around after dark.”

When they leave the Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters, Deacon gives the small divot on the door a sharp yank to release it from its cradle in the failsafe mechanism. The doors snap closed with a sharp _bang!_ that echoes through the abandoned street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the Switchboard he paraphrases Truman Capote’s _“You can’t give your heart to a wild thing.”_
> 
> In Diamond City, outside the Mass Surgery Center, Deacon and Nick quote _Richard the Third (5.4.7)_ substituting ‘horse’ for ‘sweet roll’.
> 
> Myrna Loy was a lovely actress and co-stared in _'The Thin Man'_ movies with William Powell.


	3. We Destroyed Ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;_   
>  _take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment._   
>  _Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,_   
>  _but not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;_   
>  _for the apparel oft proclaims the man._
> 
> _-Hamlet (1.3.68)_

As they pick their way through the streets, Deacon is overwhelmed with the recollection of the last time he walked this path. Valentine is content to let him lead the way, but Deacon doesn’t like the sensation of the synth watching him; it reminds him of the last pair of eyes to track his movement here. He knows logically that Valentine is just making sure nothing happens, and that it isn’t just Deacon he is watching, but their surroundings as well. Still, his brain is in 'over-active mode' and it’s making him jumpy.

The sight of Goodneighbour’s walls do nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders. In fact, Quasimodo makes a reappearance. He can’t even loosen up enough to whistle and his knuckles are white where they clench his plasma pistol. Valentine surely sees how uneasy Deacon is about the area they are in, probably shooting questioning looks at his back, but the man doesn’t say anything. Deacon’s not sure if he’s grateful for, or resentful of it. 

Deacon meant to take another street to Postal Square and then go up to 35 Court, but his feet disagreed and took him down the same path he walked with High Rise, Missy, and Twitch that night. 

“Whoa,” Valentine says as they reach the area of the alley that Deacon’s been dreading to see again, “Helluva a fight took place here.”

In the grey light of the waning afternoon, the walls of the crumbling buildings are black with laser fire and ash, speckled in some places with the corrosive burns of plasma fire. Through the light dusting of snow, Deacon can see the circle of untouched rubble where Twitch was standing as he blasted a radius of fire. Thankfully, his body is gone. As is Missy’s. Perhaps the Railroad buried them, or raiders took them for gruesome warnings. He hopes it’s the former. 

Deacon touches the piece of concrete that High Rise had been taking cover behind; brushes his hand over the laser burns. Suddenly, he feels lightheaded and short of breath. He has to sit on the concrete and remind himself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. A3-21’s hand is _not_ around your throat. _Breathe._

Valentine crouches down next to the remains of Deacon’s ruck sac, almost completely dissolved by the damaged plasma cells. 

“This was your fight,” he says. Not a question. 

Deacon gives a short nod. “Almost…almost died -right where your standing, boss”

Valentine stands, backing up a bit like he doesn’t want to be in a space where death almost was. He turns, watching Deacon closely.

“You gotta distressing habit of doing that, kid.”

Deacon lets out a bark of wild laughter. “You, _literally_ , have no idea,” he says. 

Pretty soon, he’ll have to start using both hands to count the number of times he’s cheated death, and that thought starts him laughing in earnest. It just tumbles out, crazy in pitch and completely beyond his control to stop. He laughs until he is unable to make a sound until his has to force himself to suck in air because his lungs are burning. 

Valentine just lets him laugh. Does nothing, but watch and wait because Deacon needs this catharsis. They both know it, though Valentine probably doesn’t realize just how much Deacon _needs_ it. He’s so good at denial and compartmentalization that Deacon doesn’t deal with anything. Just tosses out a smart-ass quip and moves on. His father used to use his work to avoid dealing with things and in his own way, Deacon does too. _Oh, God,_ he thinks, _I AM my father._ That sets him off again. Deacon slides down the side of the concrete chunk to sit on the ground despite the snow. 

When he was in the Capital Wasteland, Deacon tried so hard not to be his father. Refused to abandon those he cared about in the same way that James had abandoned Deacon in that vault, and then again, permanently, in the Jefferson Memorial. He swore, even after Amata asked him to leave the Vault and not come back, that he would be there for them. No matter what came next for them, Deacon would be _there_ if they ever needed it. He would be there for Megaton, and Underworld, and Rivet City, and Canterbury Commons, and Little Lamplight, and even tiny Arefu, because they had all somehow become his people. 

But when he suffered the loss of his vault, Deacon ran. He didn’t know how to live in that world, or be the famed ‘Lone Wanderer’, with the only thing he’d ever loved gone -oooh... He suddenly understands his dad. He might even be able to afford him a measure of forgiveness. It’s then, that Deacon realizes he’s stopped laughing.

Valentine has retreated to sit on the hood of the burnt out car that had been Deacon’s cover a few months ago and is smoking another cigarette. Deacon sucks in a greedy, shaky breath of the crisp smoke. Then, he yanks off his gloves and scrubs his hands over his face. _Fuck,_ he thinks, _let’s not do THAT again._ He slips his gloves back on and somehow Valentine has silently moved to appear in front of him, hand outstretched. Waiting. 

Deacon takes it. It’s the one with the metal skeleton exposed showing the intricate system of hinges, wiring, joints, and steel that mimics the tendons, ligaments, muscles and bones of a human hand. It’s fascinating. He wonders if, under all her skin and muscle, Glory’s skeleton looks like this. Is this just a Gen 2 thing or does it translate into the Gen 3s as well? 

Valentine pulls Deacon to his feet.

“That looked like it was a long time comin’.” 

Valentine speaks around the cigarette that’s hanging out his mouth and Deacon is struck by the juxtaposition of his synthetic face and that simple human act. Unbidden, Deacon thinks of Eden and how _clearly_ he could hear the satisfied smile in his voice while staring the main terminal of the ZAX computer, and then, of A3-21 who still wore Harkness’ face, but how it was lax - _blank_ ; all his humanity gone. Stripped by a few words. 

Deacon turns away because he can’t stand to look at Valentine any longer with that memory swimming in his head and brushes off the seat of his pants to busy his hands. He’s not that wet, considering.

“Oh, yeah. A _long_ time coming, but don’t worry, since I just burnt out my yearly allotment of ‘crazy’ back there, I’ll be aces ‘til at least the _end_ of this little adventure,” he says, tone light, looking at the ‘OPEN’ sign that marks the _Joe Spuckies_ building. 

“Glad to hear it. Shall we?” Valentine asks after a moment, but Deacon can hear the slight disbelief in his voice. Who can blame him, though? Deacon just went off the deep end.

He leads them to the alley next to the ‘OPEN’ sign and he goes left down the well-trod path to Randolph house. However, instead of passing under the GNN ad that would take him under 35 Court and to the Customs House Tower, he heads right, down a narrow alley. The entrance to 35 Court is on the right; its sign is strangely untarnished after 200-plus-years of radiation storms and dust. Deacon stops just before they are about to round the corner and into sight of the doors; if the Triggermen are here, it's likely there is a guard.

Deacon drops into a crouch and Valentine follows suit. The synth points at the ground between them, _‘This is the place?’_ the gesture asks, and Deacon nods. Valentine slips off his hat and peaks around the side of the building. He holds up a single finger for Deacon to see -one guard. Valentine turns back, sliding his hat back on as he does so. 

“How do you want to handle this, boss?” Deacon whispers.

“Quiet. If Marty is in there, they’ll probably kill him if they get wind of us too soon.”

Deacon gives a sharp nod. “Casualties? Yes? No? I’ll take your lead on this.”

“I don’t want a fire-fight if we can help it.”

Deacon grins. “Distraction and subterfuge are my specialties, Mr. Valentine. Watch and be amazed.”

He slips past Valentine, grabbing a hefty piece of rubble from the ground. The Triggerman guard is leaning against the building; a fire is burning in a barrel just in front of him, throwing its orange light across the man’s face. Deacon hurls the rubble against the building opposite and it makes a sharp _ping!_ against the steel; the sound clearly startles the man. Deacon draws back slightly as the Triggerman looks around. He draws his pistol from inside his coat and, still watching the area, heads toward where Deacon’s rubble hit. 

The crackling of the fire in the barrel helps cover the sounds of Deacon’s boots as they crunch quickly along the ground. He makes it to just behind the Triggerman when the man hears Deacon’s footsteps and turns. “Surprise!” Deacon says with a grin and catches the guy with a solid punch to his jaw. The Triggerman goes down with a grunt of pain. Deacon unholsters his plasma pistol and brings the butt of it down hard on the back of the guy’s head. He collapses completely, unconscious.

Valentine is already at the door when Deacon turns around, shaking out his hand, and he motions for Deacon to join him. His hat is off again as Valentine listens at the door. Deacon presses his head against the cold steel but doesn’t hear anything other than the slight hum of electricity. This building, unlike the Vault-Tec one, still has enough power to run its doors. He draws back to prevent frostbite. 

“Two guys,” Valentine says after a moment and tugs his hat back on. “Maybe three. Don’t think your rock throwin’ technique is going to work this time.”

“That’s why I brought this-” Deacon gestures to the stealth boy hanging off his belt. “Won’t last as long with two people, but it’ll be plenty long enough for us to get the drop on those goons.”

“Whenever you’re ready, kid.”

Deacon directs Valentine to place a hand on his shoulder and activates the stealth boy. He gives it a second so that he is certain that they are both covered by the field and he pulls on the latch inside the door's handle. The doors slide open and Deacon and Valentine slip inside. On the left side of the room, in a small area of lowered floor and an old waste basket is being used as a fire pit to warm the space, but it’s not that much warmer inside that it was out. There are three Triggermen huddled around the fire and they’re heads all swivel to the doors. 

“Dean?” one of them asks as the doors slid closed. “Is that you?”

Deacon leads Valentine around the outskirts of the room, there is a small set of stairs near a functioning elevator that should allow them to get right next to the Triggermen. 

“What the fuck?” another one says. “Is he playin’ games out there?” 

“Probably cold, poor bastard.”

One of the Triggermen is standing at the rear of the fire, his back pressed against the railing there. The other two are sitting on a makeshift bench, a pair of submachine guns in their laps. Carefully, Deacon and Valentine creep up behind the two seated Triggermen. Valentine breaks away, becoming visible. The guy behind the fire lets out a noise of surprise and the two seated start to turn. Valentine takes out one with a hard punch to his temple and goes for the other one. 

Deacon rushes the one behind the fire, deactivating his stealth boy as he rams him into the railing. The guy goes down with a howl and Deacon slams his head into the slightly raised floor. The room is silent. Deacon checks his stealth boy; the small dial informs him he has a little more than a half a charge left. 

After a quick discussion, Valentine grabs the Triggerman Deacon took out outside and brings him in. Then, using the men’s belts and suspenders, they tie them up and gag them. Valentine bends the barrels of the submachine guns and Deacon breaks down the pistols, flinging their various parts around the room. Should these men wake before Deacon and Valentine find Marty, they won’t be causing any problems. They need to keep moving, though, more Triggermen could walk in that front door anytime.

Valentine punches the button to call the elevator.

“You gonna be alright with this 4x4 box?”

Deacon laughs. “So _not_ climbing 13 flights of stairs, boss. Not even to avoid plummeting to my death in a rickety pre-war cage.”

“They had things to prevent that, ya know.”

The elevator chimes and the doors slid open.

“You wanna put your trust in a 200-year-old piece of machinery, be my guest. Me? I don’t trust anything that old,” Deacon says as they step inside. 

“Not even me?” Valentine asks with a smirk.

Deacon’s genuinely surprised by that. 

“No shit? You were around before the war?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Deacon had thought Valentine was a clever A.I. that had formed to be a detective after the likes of Dick Tracey, Sam Spade, and Nick Charles (his name is _Nick Valentine_ for Christssakes, you don’t get more detective noir than that) in a manner not unlike how John Henry Eden came to be -faster, of course, since the general consensus is the Institute’s synths are roughly 70-years-old. Was Nick Valentine, instead, a set of pre-war memories that the early Railroad came across and downloaded into this synth? Or did the Institute themselves start that practice, only to toss it aside for its inevitable unreliability to create docile creations? 

“Huh. Cool.” Deacon says with a grin. He reaches out to hit the button for their floor destination only to pause and let out a huff of laughter; after a second Valentine joins him. 

Some of the numbers on the elevator’s panel had fallen off and had been scribbled in with a white grease pencil. One of the missing floor number's is '14' and someone had written '13' in its place, not realizing the Old-World practice of skipping that particular number.

With a final laugh, Deacon peels his gloves off, shoves them in a pocket and pokes the button for the 13th floor. Not spooky at all, just ignorance of the Old-World.

A dusty, faintly-flickering sign greets them when the doors open again. Its chunky, raised letters boldly proclaim that this floor used to belong to _Bolton Adverts_. There are no Triggermen within view and Deacon pulls back his hand where it was hovering near his stealth boy. Valentine’s hand falls from his shoulder and they step off the elevator.

To their right, there is a short hall that ends in a door. To the left, the hall takes a right turn and heads to some unseen place. For a moment the two of them stand there, silent, and Deacon watches Valentine. His head is slightly bowed, listening to some distant sound that Deacon has no hopes of hearing. Then, he jerks his head toward where the hall turns and they set off in that direction. Quietly.

There are several doors down the hall; some have been forced, others look like they’ve never shut again after their original occupants fled when that first air raid siren sounded. Most are offices, some single, others that used to hold multiple desks; now they are bunk rooms. One of the doors holds an old boardroom that has since been turned into a makeshift kitchen. 

The place is strangely empty for being a gangster hideout. Deacon is worried that even if the two of them manage to get Marty out alive, they’ll have to deal with a bunch of angry Triggermen on their way out.

Up ahead, there is a ramshackle set of stairs, that have been cobbled together on a collapsed section of ceiling, that leads to the floor above. Now, Deacon can hear the voices that Valentine has heard back at the elevator. Sounds like there is some sort of -he doesn’t know how to put it, it's not exactly pleading for a life, but it’s a little more desperate that a negotiation. The voices are still semi-distant; Deacon can only catch one word in two or three.

Valentine probably hears it all in great detail. Judging by the expression on his face, it's not a pleasant conversation. 

The stairs protest their weight and Valentine freezes as the voice’s stop. After a few tense seconds, they begin again. The two of them exit into a small office; the desk and chair are shoved to one side and the door is open. Another short hall opens into an ancient waiting area, beyond which is a reception desk. To the left, is an oval opening in a wall that frames the Triggermen’s multilevel control center.

It’s a hodgepodge creation of wood and metal that connects the bare, gaping sections of at least three other floors. The rubble that surely once covered the floor of the area has been repurposed to build fresh supports, catwalks, and rails. Chairs have been taken from all over the building and are in clusters around fires or tables -one particularly large chair, that must have once been the seat of some high-level exec, is settled against the far wall in a position of importance. 

Near the center of the room, kneeling with his hands behind his back, looking a little worse for wear, is Marty. Another, beefier man is next to him and in considerably worse shape. Probably the same guy that helped Marty get the Vault-Tec Regional Headquarters’ door open. Maybe, even, the reason for his deception. 

Deacon and Valentine edge back into the short hallway. They need a plan of attack; there are at least a dozen Triggermen loitering that they can see. He hopes there aren’t too much more than that because he didn’t bring enough cells to take down small town of baddies and after his freak out earlier, he could really use a long-term break from almost dying.

Valentine reaches into his coat and pulls his handgun from its holster. “Here,” he says and gives it to Deacon along with a couple speedloaders.

“Uh, boss? You can fill me in on whatever it is that you're thinking anytime.”

“Use that stealth boy of yours and free Marty. Then give him that -he’s a hell of a shot. I’ll distract the Triggermen while you do it. Their boss and me, we got a little history. Try and take out a few of them while your stealth boy lasts. Even the odds a bit.”

Looks like their going from non-lethal measures to lethal. Not that these guys don’t deserve it, but Deacon has never liked killing. He really does wish there was more ‘let's help each other out of the ashes’ and less ‘kill everything’ in the Wastes. 

“You’ll probably need this,” Deacon says, testing the weight of Valentine's gun. It’s heavy. Heavier than a .44 or a 10mm pistol. It looks a bit like a love-child between the two, actually. The gun hums slightly in his hand and has a polished wooden handle with a little, green light on the side of the barrel. Now he really wants to pick it apart and get a good look at. Deacon has never seen a gun quite like this one.

Valentine shakes his head. “They’ll just take it from me and then it won’t be any good to anyone. I don’t need a gun to be dangerous; don’t you worry about me.”

Deacon’s eye drop to Valentine’s skeletal hand. Yeah, his imagination can supply all kinds of gruesome things that might be done with something that strong, sharp, and dexterous.

“On your lead, boss.”

Valentine rounds the hall corner and heads out into the waiting area in a low trot. About half way to the door, he stands fully upright, holds up his hands in surrender and walks at an even pace to the door that opens into the Triggermen’s command center. Deacon follows a few seconds behind, a slight shimmering of air and light that won’t be noticed in the face of Valentine’s presence.

When Valentine steps through the doors, the Triggermen finally realize that they’re not alone. There is a shuffle of excited, startled movement and the sound of a dozen weapons cocking. A few of the Triggermen mutter _“Valentine”_ in a sneering manner; only one person says _“Nick!”_ and it's Marty. Deacon slips past Valentine and carefully begins to skirt the edges of the room toward Marty. All eyes are on Valentine, but he can’t get too close to any single Triggerman or he’ll risk his cover.

“Sunny Soto,” Valentine calls out, “you in here? We need to talk.”

There’s a commotion on one of the upper floors. A gleaming head of dark hair appears from one of the balconies. Followed by a bark of laughter.

“Nick Valentine!” the man calls, moving to lean on the railing. He’s got the laid-back manner of a leader comfortable in his position. A cigarette dangles from one hand. “Shoulda known you’d never pay a ransom. But nothin’ ventured, nothin’ gained right?”

“Right.”

Sunny waves a lazy hand at his Triggermen. A few of them step up to Valentine and pat him down. They come up empty handed and settle their guns on Valentine. One of them shakes his head at Sunny.

“Stashed that gun of yours somewhere, eh? One of these days, I’ll get my hands on it.”

“Don’t count on it, Sunny.”

Deacon starts to cut across the back half of the room, angling toward Marty. When the shooting starts, Deacon has decided he’ll let Marty handle the goons in the front half of the room and Deacon will focus on the upper floors. He’s already spotted another five guys milling around up there.

Sunny starts down a set of stairs toward the lower level. “You come here all alone, Valentine? Unarmed? That doesn’t strike me as particularly intelligent. Especially not for Diamond City’s famed robot dick.”

Deacon pauses because he just has to catch the look that forms on Valentine’s face. It’s dark, to say the least.

“Well, since you took my partner and all, didn’t have much choice, did I? Not that you made it particularly difficult to follow you. Startin’ to think you want a little ‘robot dick’, Sunny. I’m flattered. Really.”

Deacon has to cover his mouth to prevent his snigger. Marty, however, has the luxury of a laugh.

The cocky smile Sunny had been wearing, vanishes as a few of the Triggermen snort. Sunny hops down to the main level and punches one of nearest guys in the jaw. He goes down with a grunt and the rest of the Triggermen shut up. Sunny readjusts his shirt and runs a hand over his hair, smoothing the few loose pieces that had flown forward.

“Marty!” Sunny calls, “Why don’t you tell Valentine here how you came to be our guest?”

Marty frowns and looks away. Uh oh. That’s not a good sign. Deacon settles himself behind Marty; when he gets a chance, he’ll free the man.

“Come on, Bullfinch. Tell your boss where your allegiances really lie. Tell him what you and Skinny Malone were tryin' to do.”

The beefy guy, whose arms are thick with muscles and pretty much defies his nickname, glances at Sunny, a scowl firmly on his face. It’s somewhat diminished by his pale, sweaty continence and the patch of dried blood on one arm.

Marty is quiet. Deacon leans in and whispers in his ear.

“Shhh. I’m going to cut you loose and give you Valentine’s gun. Then, I’m going to take out a few guys while I still have my field. Wait until _after_ I appear to start shooting up the place, yeah?”

Marty dips is head in a small nod. Deacon pulls out his combat knife and with a quick tug, cuts the rope holding Marty’s hands together. He puts Valentine’s gun in one hand and the speedloaders in the other. 

“You tell him, Bullfinch, or I swear I’ll spill it all and make sure you never get a chance to explain,” Sunny threatens.

Marty looks up sharply. Eyes darting between Sunny and Valentine.

Deacon debates whether or not to cut Skinny Malone loose too. Not. He decides. He can’t trust Marty’s friend to not blow his cover. He heads toward a small cluster of five Triggermen. He thinks he can probably get them all before his stealth boy runs out and then focus on the upper levels. He doesn’t know what Valentine has planned, but he hopes it involves taking one of those submachine guns from two guys guarding him.

“Marty?” Valentine prompts.

“Look, Nick. It’s not what you think, or what Sunny’s implying, okay? I promised I wouldn’t run with the Triggermen anymore, and I haven’t. I’m legit. I swear.”

Sunny laughs.

“I hear a ‘but’ in there,” Valentine says, eyes narrowed.

The five Triggermen that Deacon has honed in on are standing just in front of a trashcan fire, to the left of Valentine. On the belt of one of the guys, Deacon spies a hefty knife like his own. He takes two deep, calming breaths to prepare for the carnage to follow, then he grabs it. The guy feels the tug of his knife coming loose and starts to turn; Deacon jams his own combat knife into the man’s kidney. He stumbles away, blood rushing from the wound. The others start to turn and look around for the source, one guy drops and tries to put pressure on the bleeding Triggerman.

Deacon brings the other knife around and rams it into the throat of the next closest Triggerman. He leaves it there and the man falls back gurgling. Spinning around and blocking the third Triggerman from bringing up his gun, Deacon knifes him below the ribcage, driving the blade up with both hands. Blood spills down the knife and onto Deacon’s hands, covering them in a visible outline of red before the stealth boy readjusts and hides that too. This Triggerman stumbles back and trips over the one who is trying to stop the bleeding of the first, landing them both in a heap of tangled limbs. 

The fourth Triggerman gets off a few shots and it alerts the whole room, but by then most already know something is going down. Distantly, Deacon can hear Valentine take out of the guys guarding him and then the loud _crack!_ of Valentine’s handgun. It seems ten times louder in this enclosed space and a few Triggermen shaking their heads, trying to clear the ringing sound. 

Deacon unholsters his plasma pistol and shoots the fourth Triggerman in the middle of his stupid getup. He drops. Deacon’s stealth boy fades then and he points his pistol to the upper levels. _Four out of five isn’t bad,_ he thinks. The last Triggerman gets himself untangled from the body of the third and is starting to stand when Valentine’s gun goes off again and leaves a crater on the side of the man’s head. Hell of a shot, indeed. The recoil on that thing must be off the charts. 

Using the submachine gun he’s taken from the Triggermen, Valentine lays down some cover fire, forcing the main floor guys to take cover, while Deacon works on the ones on the upper levels. Marty stands and grabs Skinny Malone’s good arm, helping him to his feet as they dash out of the room to cover. Deacon and Valentine start backing out as well, even as Sunny is shouting for the Triggermen to shoot them. 

They’re almost at the door when Valentine’s submachine gun starts making the hollow click of a spent clip. He throws it to the ground and bolts, wrapping his good hand around Deacon’s arm to pull him along. Deacon manages to pick off one Triggerman trying to rush them before Valentine pulls him through the door. 

The four of them run back to the waiting room, down the short hall, and into the small office. Skinny Malone trips on the bottom stair and Marty and Deacon grab his arms to steady him. Deacon leaves a bloody hand print on the man’s tan coloured jacket. 

“This would be a helluva lot easier if my hands were free,” Malone complains, shaking off Deacon and Marty.

“Just be grateful you’re alive,” Valentine snaps. 

There is a commotion on the stairs behind them and Deacon turns to see a couple Triggermen leaning down through the hole, guns ready to fire. He takes out one with a shot to his hand that has the man howling in pain as the plasma corrodes his skin. His gun drops heavily to the ground. The other one pops out and Deacon fires, but misses. His spent cell pops up on the top of his plasma pistol and he swears, tossing the thing aside. He digs a new cell out of his belt and rams it into place just as Valentine appears beside him, his gun back in his possession as aims at the Triggerman looking to shoot them.

Deacon manages to turn away and cover his ears before Valentine fires. If they are going to keep hanging out together like this, Deacon is going to have to do something about that noise, because tinnitus is not something he is looking for this early in life. Valentine grabs his arm again and they begin running down the hall.

Marty makes it to the elevator first and rams the call button with his fist. Malone is right behind him. Deacon and Valentine join up as the elevator doors are opening and skid in as Marty hits the close door button. They have a moment’s reprieve. Deacon puts his knife and pistol away so he can shake his ears as he flexes his jaw.

“Jesus, boss. You tryin’ to make a man deaf with that thing?” 

Deacon looks at his hands in annoyance. _Shit._ Now he has blood all over the sides of his neck.

Valentine manages to look a little sheepish. “Sorry, kid. Kind of forgot about that since it doesn’t bother me.”

Marty laughs. “Nick never remembers. Frankly, it’s a wonder I can still hear at all. It’s the worst in those old subway stations. Echoes really badly down there.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Malone brakes in, “Can we cut the brotherly bullshit and free my hands?”

Deacon looks to Valentine. The synth’s expression is hard. 

“Cut him loose, Rhett. Maybe he’ll shut up for a change.”

Malone turns in the tight confines of the elevator and Deacon slices the rope. 

“About fucking time,” Malone gripes. 

“Shut up, Skinny,” Marty says, embarrassed. “These two just saved our butts, show a little respect.”

“Not outta here, yet,” Valentine replies as the elevator slows. 

It chimes and the doors open. Deacon and Valentine point their guns out the door, but there’s no one in the lobby. Well, save for the four guys they tied up earlier. They’ve regained consciousness and Deacon salutes them as they go by. Valentine and gang jog out of 35 Court and onto the street. Sunny’s guys are no doubt still after them, but with the elevator on the bottom floor, if they move, they can be long gone before any of the guys make it down the stairs.

In the quickly-dying afternoon light, the four start out for Goodneighbour. Deacon knows these streets well from his time as a package runner for The Railroad and after a moment of discussion, they agree to let him lead the way. Deacon sets a quick pace as he picks his way through the rubble-strewn streets, Valentine is close on his heels, with Marty helping Malone behind them -Malone’s not in the best condition to be traipsing through Boston on a chilly winter afternoon, without proper outerwear.

Behind them, in the distance, Deacon can hear shouts. They’ve left tracks in the light snow and if the Triggermen are smart, they will track the group with them. Deacon leads them away from Postal Square and over to a small, collapsed overpass. The few vehicles that still litter it, and the high sides, provide good cover from anything that might want to shoot at you and it bypasses most of the Super Mutant holdings in the area. The only problem is, the overpass spits you out a stones throw from a major mutie stronghold. Most people take the long away around to avoid that area.

They jog along the overpass, boots slapping on the concrete in an uneven staccato as they dodge the various vehicles. After about five minutes, they come to a gap in the overpass’s road surface; a breach that has torn the side walls away, as well as the concrete ground. It’s left a four foot, or so, the gap between the halves. To the right, Deacon can see Goodneighbour’s walls and the brick of the Old State House. Deacon and Valentine leap the gap without hesitation. Marty eyes it with nervousness, glancing at the ground below, and Malone curses when he sees it. 

“I can’t fucking jump that. I’m barely walking here,” he says, clearly winded. He’s weak from his previous tussle with the Triggermen and clutching his wounded arm.

Deacon points out a section that is a little closer together than the gap he and Valentine jumped. Malone shakes his head.

“Look, you’ll either have to jump or get shot when those assholes catch up to us. One or the other, your choice,” Deacon says. 

“We shoulda gone the other way,” Marty says, pacing along the edge. 

“This is the fastest way to Goodneighbour. It's just right there.” Deacon points to the town’s walls. “Now, come on. We can’t wait here long.” He can hear the shouts of the Triggermen getting closer.

“Come on, Marty,” Valentine coaxes. “You gonna let a little gap stop you?”

“Fuck. Nick, I-” He shakes his head.

Valentine pulls Marty’s flask out of his coat pocket. “Hey, catch.” Valentine tosses the flask across the bridge and Marty catches it with cold, fumbling fingers. “Now you can’t fall, so jump.”

Marty stares at the flask for a moment, then tucks it away. “Okay. Okay. Come on, Skinny. We jump, on the count of three.”

“This is a bad idea,” Malone says, but backs up with Marty just in front of the section that Deacon pointed out.

Marty counts and when he gets to three, the two of them run and jump the gap. Marty lands next to Deacon, who steadies him with hand on his arm. Malone stumbles a bit on the edge, his shoes slipping in the snow and Valentine catches his wrist, pulling him further back, to safety. 

“Thanks,” Malone mumbles.

They keep going along the overpass and soon it starts sloping down, getting ready to meet the ground level. Next to the last car on the ramp, Deacon stops and crouches down. He explains that up head is a super mutant stronghold in a mostly destroyed building that might have been a hotel or apartment complex. Super Mutants don’t see that well compared to their hearing, and with the light nearly gone, if they move slowly, they should be able to avoid alerting the mutants. If they get supremely lucky, the Triggermen will alert the super mutants and draw attention away from themselves.

Deacon starts out again, low and slow. Eyes watching the building up head for any movement. The noise of the shouts seems to have died and maybe the Triggermen realize they’re now in mutant territory. There are a couple of super mutants milling about in the building’s old lobby, their green skin a weird brown colour in the orange light of the fire they have burning. Deacon sticks to the far building, trying to keep himself and their group, as far out of the waning light as possible. He avoids the areas of the rubble that seem unstable and near the end of the building he has to go around a rusted out van. 

Deacon lets out a small sigh of relief as they cross into the alley that will lead them to the neon lights of Goodneighbour. He makes sure they the continue to go slow for some distance after they cleared the super mutant building. Just in case. Then, he stands completely and they rush the rest of the way to the Commonwealth’s most famous dive.

A burly looking man in a dirty suit and hat greets them as they tumble in through the town’s door. Deacon tenses. The man looks just like the Triggermen they’ve been running from. The guy takes in their disheveled and bloodied appearance with quick eyes. 

“Everyone’s welcome in Goodneighbour, pal. We’re the Neighbourhood Watch,” the burly man says, gesturing to the guy on the other side of the door. Their guns are ready but relaxed in their hands. “You don’t hurt no one who don’t have it coming, and we won’t hurt you.”

Deacon nods, “Words to live by, my man.”

“Try the Hotel Rexford,” the other one says. “You can get cleaned up there.”

“Thanks,” Valentine replies as he grasps Marty’s arm and pulls him away from the door. “We just might do that.”

Valentine walks Marty through the small courtyard at the entrance and past a few shops as Deacon marvels at the change in Goodneighbour. He remembers how tense and unwelcoming it was before. It felt like every person you met in the streets was either trying to kill you with the intensity of their gaze, or shrink from your sight. The shops were meager and the people scared. Now, it’s like walking through a completely different place. 

Daisy’s shop has found a neon ‘OPEN’ sign somewhere and it glows proudly in the low light of the evening. Another shop has since taken the once vacant area next to it. The painted sign that hangs in the window proclaims it to be _Kill or Be Killed._ That’s rather direct, even for a weapons shop, but hey, whatever works. Real mercs probably love it. Manning the counter inside is an assaultron, and Deacon is suddenly dying to go inside and see what that’s all about. 

The lighting in the square is bright, with a few funky tea lights twisted around the lamp posts that don’t work. The light leads you down the streets, chasing away the dark. Some of the lights further in are still under construction, but gone is the gloomy, stab-you-in-the-back feel the town once sported. There is still an air of dangerousness to the place and it probably isn’t a good idea to walk around completely unaware, like the people in Diamond City do; however, it’s more of a ‘dashing rogue’ kind of danger, rather than the ‘psycho raider’ it was before. 

Deacon grins, wide, amazed and proud. _Way to go, Hancock,_ he thinks.

Valentine drags Marty down a narrow alleyway with a small growl and Deacon’s grin vanishes. He follows, but Malone hesitates at the mouth.

“You better get a room for both you and Marty,” Valentine says to Malone, voice low. A clear dismissal if Deacon ever heard one. Malone vanishes.

They round a corner further in and Valentine lets go of Marty. Deacon has a profound sense of déjà vu until he realizes that this is the same alleyway Hancock lead him down all those months ago. The things this alley must have seen.

“Start talking, Marty. I want it all.”

Marty rubs his arms. “It’s cold out, Nick. Can’t this wait?”

“No.”

Deacon settles himself against a brick wall a little way away, watching the mouth of the alley. How Valentine handles this isn’t any of his business, but he’ll make sure they aren’t interrupted. 

Marty sighs and crosses his arms against the cold. “Skinny and me came up together here, in Goodneighbour. He saved my life once. I owed him a favour.”

“That doesn’t explain what Sunny Soto said about your allegiances. You told me you were through with those thugs.”

“I am! I swear! Nick, it was just this one thing. For Skinny. To help him. That’s all. Sunny must have gotten wind of Skinny’s plans and that’s why he ambushed us in that Vault-Tec place. When he realized he had me, he thought he could get a few caps from you.”

Valentine’s yellow eyes narrow in a low light of the alley. “What plans are those?”

Marty shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I told Skinny I wasn’t going to help him beyond getting vault locations. This was the repayment of my debt.”

“What does Malone want with a vault?”

It’s clear that Valentine’s in full on 'detective mode' and he isn’t going to let Marty get away with half answers and dodges.

“He…he thinks a vault is a better place to build a gang from. Ya know, safe, secure-” _‘We’ll be there!’_ Deacon thinks. “-He plans to kill Sunny and take control of the Triggermen; you can see where Sunny might not like that.”

“It’s not like Sunny doesn’t deserve a bullet, but what the hell are you doing helping Malone become the next Sunny Soto. Hell, worse than Sunny because he’ll have to employ even more violence to prove he’s a _worthy_ successor,” Valentine says. Disgusted. _Angry._

Marty frowns, defensive. “I’m not _helping_ , Nick. I was just repaying a debt with a vault location. Whatever else Skinny has planned, I want nothing to do with.”

“I don’t care what debt you owed that thug,” Valentine snaps. “The condition of your employment was no contact with the Triggermen. You know what they did to Ellie’s family. I never told her about your previous life because I wanted to protect her and because I believed it when you said you wanted to change.”

“I have. You know I have, but Skinny and me, we were friends. We watched each other’s back on these streets. We joined the Triggermen together. I owed him, what was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to refuse. Cops don’t help criminals, Marty. Good guys don’t help bad; especially the kind that thinks peddlin’ chems to runaways, and pimping flesh, and _murder_ are acceptable means of employment. And in the case where you just couldn’t say no, you weren’t supposed to drag all of us into your goddamned mess.”

“I know. Fuck. _I know._ I screwed up, Nick. I screwed up bad.”

Valentine looks away and lets out a disappointed sigh. He digs out his pack of cigarettes and sticks one in his mouth, but he doesn’t light it right away. After a tense moment, he speaks.

“It might be best if you stayed in Goodneighbour for a while.”

Marty looks like he wants to keep fighting, to somehow win his way back into Valentine’s good graces. He starts to speak, but Valentine holds up a hand and Marty quiets.

“You’re in no shape to travel, right now. And frankly, I’m in no mood to travel with you.” Valentine rolls his unlit cigarette between his fingers, studying it. “I need some time to think and so do you.”

Marty stares at him, silent. There’s a defeated hunch to his shoulders.

“Okay, Nick. I’ll uh, see you around, I guess.” Marty rubs his arms as he pushes past Deacon and heads down the alleyway. Head bowed.

“Try not to get killed out there,” Valentine calls after his retreating form and Marty lifts a hand in acknowledgment. “And waste all my hard work,” Valentine mutters to himself before looking at Deacon. “Come on, if we want to avoid Sunny’s guys, we’ll have to move fast.”

Deacon nods and follows Valentine back out into Goodneighbour’s entrance square. Valentine pauses a moment to flick up the collar on his coat and light his cigarette. Deacon wonders, that when the time comes, if he can just slip out of Nick Valentine’s view; disappear, get a face change -or better yet, fake his death and then get a face change. It was hard enough watching that conversation between Marty and Valentine, he can’t even begin to imagine being on the receiving end of such disappointment. 

\- - - - -

After they arrive in Diamond City that night, Valentine tells Deacon to drop by the office the next morning for his caps. Earned in full. When Valentine has disappeared into the mostly empty market and down Third Street, Deacon heads back out to the rationing site. He needs to check for the promised update, and something tells him it's there now. It is. When his hand comes up with the holotape, Deacon shakes his head. _Goddamn tribals,_ he thinks with a grin, _working on Christmas._

Deacon shoves the tape into the terminal and sits at the desk. He looks out the onto the snow of the parking lot, shimmering in the moonlight, through the missing wall of the trailer as the tape loads. He peels off his gloves and tosses them on the desk as he begins to scroll through the dozens of different reports, starting from earlier this year when Kilo house was first established, to the latest, which was a couple weeks ago. As he reads, Deacon rubs off some of the lingering blood that he was unable to get off by washing his hands in the snow earlier. 

When he reaches the end of the reports, dread has made itself at home in his gut. P.A.M.’s summary of the information, which the holotape started with, is frighteningly accurate: _87% chance of increased hostilities leading to death around Kilo house. 77% chance of increased hostilities leading to death in areas outside of University Point._

With a heavy sigh, Deacon wipes the tape, throws it in with the rest of his stash, and leaves. He needs a bucket of warm water for washing and something to eat. When Deacon sees the look on Vadim’s face when he arrives back in the Dugout Inn, he decides he definitely needs that bucket first. He trots off to get cleaned up while Vadim has something prepared for him to eat.

January passes quickly, but with a lingering sense of trouble on the horizon. More jobs crop up thanks to the word around town that Nick Valentine trusted him enough to help him get his partner out of trouble. Marty hasn’t been back in Diamond City, though. People keep asking Deacon what happened since apparently, whatever answer Valentine gives, is unsatisfactory. The story changes every time someone asks him. First, it was that Marty went off to be a deathclaw charmer after he found an egg in the ruins of Boston. Then, he told one about Marty finding an underground city of tribals beneath the Vault-Tec headquarters and that they made him their leader. His latest one involves radiation turning Marty into a real live Manta Man!

A few of the kids believe his bullshit, some of the more gullible adults do too, but most leave with an annoyed frown because he didn’t spill all the dirty details of Valentine’s and Marty’s breakup. As if it were any of their business. Besides, if they listened to any of the caravaner gossip coming from Goodneighbour, they might know that Marty seems to have taken a page from Valentine’s book and starting taking jobs as a detective there.

After a while, people stop asking and pretty soon the talk isn’t about Marty and Valentine, it’s about _Rhett_ and Valentine. 

As February slides into hibernation temperatures, Deacon is pleased to find that he is spending more and more time in Valentine’s company. “Nick”, Valentine stresses shortly after Ground Hog’s Day. Apparently, he’s tired of always being called ‘boss’ when he considers the two of them equals. There’s a warm flutter in Deacon’s chest when Valentine - _Nick_ , names them as equals. It’s promptly squashed under the reminder that it's not _Deacon_ (or even The Lone Wanderer) that Nick considers an equal, but Rhett and he needs to remember that. He’s not always going to be here. 

But as he leans back in a chair and props his wet boots on Ellie’s desk (after she makes a snarky comment about him getting soft around the middle with all her sweet rolls) and she shoves them off with a noise of disgust that turns into a laugh while Nick watches with an amused grin from the safety of his own desk, Deacon wishes he could stay here. He _aches_ to stay here. He wants to come clean about everything and find acceptance, forgiveness even, and it scares him. He’s not been this attached to a place and its people, since his time in the Capital Wasteland. 

For all the work he puts in for the Railroad, he’s not this attached to _them._ Sure, theirs is a worthy cause, and he likes helping them, doing good with them, but it’s easy to stay aloof there. Doubly so after the whole ‘we think you might be a traitor’ thing.

Working with Nick, Deacon sees the changes that a little kindness can do on a person to person level. He sees how people change, get closure, find peace, become better themselves, and ultimately, pay it forward -he didn’t realize he was missing that from his time in Capital Wasteland until he found Nick doing it here. It’s not perfect in Diamond City, there’s still assholes and always will be, but John Q Public are better for knowing Nick and so is Deacon.

Problem is, The Lone Wanderer is too close to the surface when Nick’s around.

As they travel the ruins of Boston, or even outside of them, on whatever case has dragged Nick out of town and he thinks he might need a fast-talking merc with a plasma pistol in case of trouble, Deacon sees the plight of the Commonwealth’s people. He knows the crumbling Minutemen are unable to keep up with the problems of the Commonwealth; their last capable leader fell a while ago and the organization hasn’t been the same since. Squabbling and infighting plague them now; it's disgraceful, but not wholly surprising.

Every great organization and civilization fell because it crumbled from the inside out because it had weak leaders and people who strayed from its original tenants. Deacon thinks of that quote of Lincoln’s that Eden liked to use, because it just didn’t apply to America, but can used for any endeavour, country and organization alike.

The Minutemen have destroyed themselves; they faltered and fell. It’s only a matter of time before they are nothing more than a Commonwealth legend and it’s a shame. They’re a great idea -but that’s just it, isn’t it? A great _idea_ , but the power that is formed by such a group, granted to them by the people they help, inevitably corrupts.

Maybe someone will take on the mantle of General and lead the Minutemen back to their roots. The Lone Wanderer wants it to be him. He wants Deacon to help all the people he and Nick come across, wants Deacon to bring the aid of the Minutemen to the Railroad, to start forming the alliances needed to begin the dismantling of the Institute, but Deacon shies away. He won’t be that leader, not again. 

However, it’s so difficult to look out on the Commonwealth and not want to do _something._

It’s why he whistles _‘The Washington Post’_. He cheers himself, _distracts_ himself, from these thoughts with that cheery band number. It’s why it plays on repeat in his head and on his lips while he’s out in the Commonwealth, because, between that and the keeping an eye out for raiders and muties, or engaging in a firefight, it leaves no brain power for The Lone Wanderer’s thoughts of leading a revolution. 

And since he’s been travelling with Nick a lot lately, it only seems right to add _‘Manhattan Beach’_ to his repertoire. It’s not nearly as polished or nuanced as Deacon’s version of the _‘The Washington Post’_ , but the amused smirk Nick shoots him the first time he whistles it, is enough encouragement to keep practicing.

He’s practicing it the afternoon, sometime near the end February, when they find Barbra Long strung up on Sammy Swatter.

Deacon and Nick are coming back from tracking a kid, who skipped out on his tab, to Vault 81. Nick had been pretty sure the kid was a Vaultie, judging from his wide-eyed wonder about the simple necessities that make up Commonwealth’s everyday life, but he ran a thorough investigation to be sure. He needed hard evidence to present to the residents of Vault 81, as they are surly at the best of times and very protective of their own. He also needed Deacon to talk with the Overseer because none of them will talk to a synth. Even one as charming as Nick. 

Because they are on the west side of Boston, Nick and Deacon enter the outskirts of Diamond City on the Fens Street side, and as such are greeted with the horrid sight of Barbra Long full on. Deacon stops mid-song.

She’s naked, laid out on the back of Sammy Swatter, a chunk of wire wound around her throat and Sammy’s to keep her in place. She’s been completely gutted with a long, jagged slice from her neck to her pubic bone. Someone has pulled has pulled a mess of wiring from her insides and left it hanging outside her body, along with a few curls of her small intestines. Her arms are stretched out long the statue’s, her left arm pulled back at an odd angle along Sammy’s right one; they’re held in place with more of the wire. There are deep cuts along the meaty parts of her upper arms, the flesh sliced away to show her metal skeleton under her muscles. Her legs dangle limply, toes barely brushing the concrete slab Sammy stands on, and on the sallow flesh of her thighs the words _SYNTH BITCH_ have been written. A U.P. Deathclaws flag has been hastily slung over Sammy’s bat and flutters in the cold breeze.

Deacon jogs forward, ears ringing. Someone grabs his arm and he swings around with a snarl on his face. A Diamond City guard lets go with a flinch. Deacon notices them then, there’s quite a few of them milling around the inner square, but they aren’t anywhere near the girl. Horror and shock transform to anger as he watches them avoid her, avoid Barbra Long. Christ, how long has she been up there?! Why have they left her there? She needs to come down, right now. Those Deathclaws fucks. _Those animals._

Deacon climbs up on the concrete base, mindful of the speckles of blood that litter it. There’s not very much of it. Clearly, she was gutted somewhere else and hung here. Where were the guards? How did they get this close? He starts unwinding the length of wire that’s keeping her arm tied to the statue’s. 

“Nick,” Deacon says, his voice strange and low. He feels like he’s starting to crack. “Help me. _Jesus._ Help me get her down from here.”

Nick’s already on the other side, though, unwinding Barbra’s other arm. Even before Deacon speaks.

“I know, kid,” he says, voice tight and angry. “I know.”

None of the Diamond City Security guards offer to help. 

When they get her arms undone, Nick holds her legs and releases the strain on her neck, so Deacon can get the length of wire around her neck undone. As his arm moves, around their two heads -Sammy’s and hers- his hand gathering the length of wire into a coil, he notices the star of a bullet wound on her forehead and feels a measure of relief. At least Barbra wasn’t still alive then the Claws tore her apart. When Deacon’s done, they slide her gently to the ground. Nick shrugs out of his trench coat and lays it over her. Deacon stays crouching next to her, he’s sick with anger and can’t stand to look at the DCS guards.

“Did anyone see anything?” Nick asks the milling guards, voice carrying well in the cold air. “Did you see the bastards that did this?”

Deacon can hear the creaking of their armour as they shuffle, but no one says a word.

Nick growls and tries again. “Who was on Wall duty?” 

There’s a beat of silence, then, “I was.”

“And?” Nick prompts, voice sharp.

“I was just coming on shift and…and there she was. Just hangin’ there. On Sammy.”

“Then what?”

“Then I shouted for the other guys walking the beat around the Walls.”

“There’s more of you out here than a regular rotation calls for,” Nick snaps. “Call a few friends for a lookie-loo?”

“Yeah, we called a few more guys,” a different voice says. “But only ‘cause we didn’t know what to do.”

“Maybe,” Deacon says, cutting off whatever Nick was about to say, and standing. “You should have done the decent thing and pulled her down.”

There’s a noise of distaste from the crowd. “What? For a synth?”

Deacon losses it. 

His anger slips into a rage. The Lone Wanderer unfurls within him until he’s suffused into every part and the masks of Deacon and Rhett fall like so much cheap paper. It must make for quite the sight because the DCS guards take a collective step back. From somewhere off to his left, Nick says his name, but it isn’t _his_ name and The Wanderer doesn’t listen.

“It shouldn’t fucking _matter_ that she was a synth, or even a replacement. You’ve taken that display down if it were Nick, right? If it was Nick Valentine strung up on that statue instead? If it were his insides strewn all over, his synthetic skin ripped apart to show his insides, if it were his coolant all over the ground? You’da done it for Nick, you’da done it for ‘your’ synth. Why is she any different? 

“Do you honestly think that the Institute gives them a choice? Do you believe that these replacements come to the Commonwealth and pick a stranger in the crowd and go ‘That one. That one, right there. I wanna steal their life and family and friends and wear their face and fuck their spouse!’? She didn’t want to be here any more than we wanted Barbra to be replaced. She deserves some goddamn sympathy, some fucking _empathy_ , you heartless bastards.” 

His voice rings out, loud and clear in the cold. He hasn’t quite shouted, but it’s a near thing. He probably could have whispered and they would have heard him just the same. 

Some of them look ashamed, some are still shocked by his transformation. He growls; he’s wasting his fucking breath. He needs to find The Deathclaws. They’ve got to still be in the area and he knows they won’t stop at this. They’ve seen that Diamond City Security hasn’t done anything, made any moves, and they’ll only get bolder. Start picking off people leaving the city, synth or not, on nothing but the suspicion they are. 

The Wanderer won’t let that happen. He turns from the gathered DCS and starts inspecting the ground around the statue. They brought her here, chopped open and ready for display. There must be a blood trail, maybe it’ll lead to where they killed her. Maybe it’ll lead to _them._

Nick puts a hand on his arm. “Kid.”

He stills and looks up.

“Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow.”

He pulls his arm from Nick’s grasp. “And where’s that, Nick? To dispense a little justice on the animals that did this? To keep Diamond City safe? Because it’s pretty fucking obvious that these guys won’t do that and someone has to.”

He starts searching the ground again. _There!_ He found another drop, and another. He sees a trail on the snow. They can’t be that far, a body is a heavy burden, especially in the cold. 

“Is it worth it if you lose yourself in the process? You’re not yourself, right now Rhett. Don’t do something you might regret.”

He ignores Nick. The man he’s talking about doesn’t exist. Maybe Rhett wouldn’t do this. Maybe he would, he’s a merc after all. Deacon wouldn’t, he knows; too much of a coward for that, but The Wanderer is well familiar with this sort of vengeance. 

The trail leads south out of town and he follows. It weaves through the streets as if the persons carrying the body were having trouble with its weight. After a few blocks, he finds an area with a considerable pool of blood and a circle of footprints. The Deathclaws must have rested here before carrying on. He spots where the trail begins again and trots after it, stealth boy swinging on his belt.

The further he goes the larger drops on the trail become. For a while, it looks like it might be leading him to the rationing site, but it swerves west, down another block.

He can hear Nick’s footsteps crunching in the snow behind him. Nick seems to know to stay some distance away from him. The synth said he wouldn’t follow, but they’re aren’t many people who can resist the pull of The Lone Wanderer’s gravity, even as masked as it is behind Deacon’s face. 

He stops next to another circle of footprints, it’s in an area that was full of apartment buildings, but it’s too close the train tracks for it to have been a nice area. The trail is leading him distractingly close to the rationing site and he’s worried that somehow he’s forgotten to wipe a holotape or a note on the terminal and The Deathclaws have found it.

“They’re close,” Nick says from behind him. “I can hear them talking. Probably just a few blocks from here.”

“Numbers?”

“Eight, at least. Probably more.”

He nods and continues on. If Nick is going to stick around, he’s glad he’s decided to be useful rather than judgmental.

The apartments start to thin out and they come to an intersection with a Pulowski Preservation Shelter on the corner across the street. _‘Exact change only!’_ the woman’s recorded voice says in his mind -it’s clear that from the corpses that often litter the ground in front of one, very few people had that while the bombs were falling. His mouth curls in disgust at the Old-World. He crosses the street and crouches next to a brick berm that is separating the sloping hill from the road next to it. 

He can hear them now; their voices are clear on the winter air. They’re laughing at something. His hand closes around his plasma pistol and draws it out, looking over the edge of the berm. Over the ridge, he can see the top of a large bonfire. They’re probably camped right next to the small cliff. 

“This is a stupid idea, kid. There’s too many of them,” Nick says, but his gun is out anyways. 

He looks at Nick. The synth looks odd without his trench coat and only the dusty grey of his button down and dark tie to keep him company. He almost asks if Nick’s cold. Instead, he says:

“Ever had the displeasure of seeing a Courser?”

Nick frowns. It’s possible he doesn’t even know what that is. “No,” he says after a moment, eyes calculating. Nick doesn’t know what to do the man in front of him, the one that sort of looks like Rhett, but clearly isn’t. The one that Rhett’s a pale imitation of. 

The Wanderer gives Nick a grin. The kind that Deacon likes: mischievous and a little dark around the edges. “ _Exactly._ ” 

He hits the button on his stealth boy and disappears.

It is possible for The Deathclaws to notice the boot tracks he’s leaving in the snow or even the shimmer of his stealth field, like that of like sunlight glinting off a lake, as he trots up the hill. His movements are quick and low, but it’s clear they are too into their own celebration to notice. There’s only a token guard watching the road and he isn’t looking for footprints that magically appear in the snow. The Wanderer picks him off first, his knife quick and sure as it catches the man across the throat. The rest don’t even notice their guard is down. 

He does a quick count of the remaining Claws, adrenaline pumping strong and sure in his veins. There’s ten left, eight men, two women. His plasma pistol holds twelve shots; he can do this with one cell if he’s careful. He drops to one knee in the snow and takes his first shot. The man is standing and when the plasma shot catches him near the back of his neck, he stumbles forward in the bonfire, collapsing their teepee of wood and fire. 

The rest of the Claws grab their weapons with shouts of surprise and outrage. The Wanderer dashes to the left, careful not to slip in the snow and leave an obvious indicator of his location. He shoots another one, plasma catching him square in his unprotected chest, and dashes on. He takes out another two like this; then, he rushes the group before they can figure out which direction he is moving in. 

It’s a bit of blur after that. He’s pretty sure he gets one with a knife to his upper chest, similar placement as his own scar, and takes another one out with a plasma blast. Then, he hears the pump of a shotgun and grabs another Claw as a shield. He still has his field and they both disappear for a second before the blast sprays the area with blood. He lets go of the dying Claw and the man reappears as he drops to his knees. The Wanderer ducks around the blazing fire and sees one of the women partially buried under the fallen logs. He puts her out of her misery. 

Two left. He comes round to where the other woman was wielding the shotgun, but she’s gone. He pauses, uncertain; searching.

“Hey, asshole!”

He turns. She’s followed him around the fire. _Fuck._ His field is still intact, but the fire is highlighting the shimmering effect of the stealth boy. She levels the gun at him.

There’s two shots. 

The loud _crack_ of Nick’s handgun and the deafening blast of the shotgun. He feels a sharp sting in his shoulder and stumbles, a cry on his lips and drops his knife. The woman goes down on one leg with a scream, the other is gaping mass of blood and bone. With a snarl, he shoots her before she can bring the shotgun to bear again and swings his pistol around, looking for the last Claw. 

Nick has him and is dragging him back to the campsite with one hand twisted firmly in the folds of his coat. He disengages his stealth boy. The last Claw, a kid that looks about sixteen, stares at him in abject horror. Nick’s face is completely closed.

The Wanderer levels his plasma pistol at the Claw and he flinches inward, trying to get away. After a moment, Deacon lowers it. 

“How about this, kid: you can play messenger, okay? Tell The Deathclaws that if I _ever_ catch them around Diamond City again, I’ll personally visit University Point and show them the _enormity_ of my displeasure. Now, beat it.”

Nick releases the kid and he bolts. 

Deacon holsters his plasma pistol and surveys the campsite. He really did a number on these Deathclaws and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. Righteous? Triumphant? Sick? Horrified that he’s still capable of this level of violence if someone pushes his buttons _just_ right? He spots his knife and tucks it back in its sheath. The adrenaline is starting to fade and Deacon sways in place, the buckshot in his shoulder loudly reminding him he just took a shotgun blast. He groans and tucks his arm close. 

“Too bad there aren’t any mortuaries left these days; they’d absolutely love me,” Deacon says, starting out of the campsite and pointedly avoiding Nick’s gaze. His tone somewhere between a sarcasm and self-hate. He’s not sorry The Claws are dead, but for all his talk about how violence isn’t the answer, Deacon hates how often he seems to fall back on it. 

He’s stopped by Nick grasping his bomber jacket’s sleeve. He turns to offer some sort of excuse, but Nick gasps his zipper and is pulling away his jacket away from his injured shoulder. 

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” Deacon flinches back.

His shoulder is a bloody mess and it’s starting to drip its way down his arm. The hardened leather armour plates in his jacket have taken the brunt of the blast, but they were never meant to take a shot of buck. His jacket is torn to shreds, but it has probably saved his shoulder if he can get back to Diamond City and have Sun pick out the shot. 

“Serves you right,” Nick snaps, yanking his zipper back up like Deacon is a misbehaving toddler and not sparing him any agony as it jostles his shoulder. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

Deacon reels back, the pain making him snarl, “I’m sorry, but did you miss what those monsters did to Barbra Long? They fucking had it coming.”

“From you?”

Deacon looks away. “If not me, then who? You saw Diamond City Security sitting on their hands and self-righteousness because she wasn’t ‘real’.”

 _Who indeed?_ The Lone Wanderer asks him. 

Nick’s silent, that calculating look is back. Then, he turns and starts back toward Diamond City. Deacon follows in his wake.

\- - - - -

By the time they make it to Diamond City’s outer square, Deacon is a pale, shaking, and sweating mess. Nick’s taken pity on him somewhere around the last block and has swung Deacon’s good arm around his shoulders. As they walk by Sammy Swatter, Deacon is relieved to note that Barbra Long’s body is gone.

There’s an increased DCS presence guarding the routes to into the square are well as several more guards posted directly at the main gates. Deacon’s glad that, at the very least, they’re taking the safety of the _human_ lives in Diamond City seriously. None of the guards look at them as they pass.

Doctor Sun is reading the latest issue of _Publick Occurrences_ when Nick drags him to the clinic. He spares one look at Deacon, gives an annoyed sigh, and throws his paper on the counter. 

“Downstairs,” he says and follows right behind them.

Nick helps Deacon sit on the gurney and steps away. He settles himself against the stair’s railing.

“Start talking,” Sun says as he pulls down the zipper on Deacon’s jacket.

“Ow, ow! Shotgun blast to the shoulder. It was nearly my face, but you know how much Nick likes my face, so he- Aaaa!” Deacon yelps as Sun peels away his jacket.

He helps Deacon pull his arms out before grabbing his bandage scissors of the small table and cutting Deacon’s shirt away.

“Aw, come on, doc! How many of my shirts are you going to ruin with those things?”

“Stop needing my services and I’ll stop destroying your clothing, Mr. Rhett.”

When Sun has it all pulled back from Deacon’s shoulder, he gives a low noise of disapproval. Then, he grabs some ancient gauze and wipes some of the blood away to get a better look. Deacon hisses and flinches back. 

“I’ll get you a dose, then.”

Sun retrieves a small syringe from a Vault-Tec lunch box he is has stored on the lower shelf of the small table. Deacon recognizes the faint purple label.

“Not, Med-X doc,” Deacon says as he moves away, but Sun follows. “No. _Don’t._ Ow!” 

It takes a few seconds for the Med-X to work its way through his system, following the beat of his heart, but soon he’s in a haze of colours and sounds. The pain in his shoulder is gone, but so is the sensation of touch and it feels like he’s floating in the middle of Sun’s basement clinic. He can no longer feel the gurney beneath him. 

“It’s only a half dose,” Sun says somewhere off to his left. He’s rummaging around for something and to Deacon, it sounds like pipe pistol going off. He flinches away and starts to move off the gurney. 

Sun catches his good arm and pulls him back on as he comes around with a tin can and a pair of tweezers. Deacon watches with wide eyes as Sun’s form shifts and swirls before his before him until it’s James that starts to pick the buckshot out of his shoulder. The pellets land with a _clink_ in the can. Deacon leans further and further back, trying to get away from the image. His dad doesn’t look a day older.

“Stop moving,” Sun snaps, but Deacon hears his dad ask: _‘How did this happen?’_

_Clink._

Deacon frowns, angry at himself for the misstep that led here. He's distracted, momentarily, from trying to move away from the ghost of his father. “I was angry and I screwed up; miscalculated.”

_Clink._

_James sighs,_ as Sun gives him an odd look, “What?” 

_‘I never wanted this for you. You were safe in that vault.’_

“ _We_ were safe,” Deacon snaps. “Then you left. What was I supposed to do, spend the rest of my days as a wiping boy for Almodovar?”

_Clink, clink._

Nick moves forward from his perch against the stairs. “What’s going on?”

_James lets out a laugh. ‘Ha! As if pompous ass would have lived that long. No. What you were supposed to do, was something other than spending your days getting shot at. I always thought you’d be a good Overseer.’_

Now it’s Deacon’s turn to laugh. He remembers that comment from the conversation they had after the G.O.A.T. and gives the same answer he did that day. “You want to live your twilight years with me as your boss? Careful what you wish for, dad.”

“He’s probably hallucinating,” Sun says and digs another pellet out of Deacon’s right shoulder. _Clink._ “Not much I can do about it now.”

“Glad to see your sunny bedside manner hasn’t changed, Sun. Is he okay?” Nick asks as he bends down to get a better look at Deacon’s face. His gaze his focused somewhere over Sun’s shoulder.

“He isn’t going to die, if that’s what your asking.” _Clink._ “He still owes me caps.”

Nick lets out a snort of laughter.

_James places a warm hand on the back of Deacon’s neck, the white of his lab coat leaves a smoky trail in the air. ‘I just wanted you to be safe. You knew I couldn’t bare the thought of losing you too.’_

Deacon waves a hand in front of his face, it blurs in front of him as he tries to dispel the image of his father. “Lucky, you didn’t have to then, isn’t it? I was the one who had to lose you.” 

Nick catches his hand and James vanishes. He doesn’t take the haze with him, though.

“Kid?” 

_Clink._

Deacon blinks a couple of times and he brings up a hand to rub at his eyes, but only succeeds in knocking his sunglasses to the floor. Nick’s eyes suddenly seem really bright under the brim of his hat, but they’re steady. They aren’t blurring the way everything else is. He notices now that one is a little darker than the other, maybe a slight short in its wiring. It’s fitting he thinks, that Nick's eyes glow; they're a beacon in the dark, just like his sign, just like his heart.

There’s a snort of laughter to Deacon’s right from Sun at his shoulder. _Clink._ Nick drops Deacon’s hand and ducks his head, embarrassed.

“Oh..I said that out loud, didn’t I?” Deacon starts laughing. “Oops.”

Nick is saved from forming some sort of comment as Ellie chooses that moment to burst into the clinic’s basement. 

“Nick?! Rhett?! Are you down here?” Ellie demands as she rushes down the stairs.

“Right here, Ellie. We’re okay,” Nick replies and moves back to catch Ellie as she hits the floor of the basement. He doesn’t want her rushing Deacon.

“Oh my God,” she gasps as she takes in Deacon’s bloodied shoulder. “That doesn’t look okay to me.”

“It is okay,” Deacon assures her, in a bright but unsteady voice, as he pokes one of the buckshot holes. Sun slaps his hand away. “Can’t feel a thing. I mean like _anything_ , in fact, I just had a really great chat with my dad. He’s dead, ya know. Feeling pretty good about it.”

_Clink._

Ellie looks at Nick with some concern. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Apparently, he’s hallucinating.”

_Clink._

“Whoa, wait. I feel like I need to backtrack a bit there,” Deacon says, interrupting. “I’m not glad my dad’s dead, ‘cause it sort of sounded like I said that. Really, what I was trying to say, is that because I am in this Med-X fueled dream, I can’t feel like… _feelings._ So. in theory I’m sad, but my current reality is that of semi-bliss.” 

“It sounds like he’s high,” Ellie points out after Deacon’s little rant. 

“He’s both. It’s an uncommon side effect of Med-X, but I’ve seen it before,” Sun says as he drops the last buckshot in the tin can and sets it aside. “He’ll be fine once it metabolizes. Probably have one hell of a hangover, though.”

“Oh, you have no idea, doc. I’ll tell you right now, so not worth the high. Especially the part where you see ghosts.” Deacon says this last part while looking at Ellie. He keeps seeing Amata’s face slid over hers and he really wishes he didn’t.

Sun injects a stimpak into Deacon’s upper arm and the flesh starts knitting together. “This time, Mr. Rhett, pay your previous bill before you rack up a new debt.”

“What’s the damage, doc? Cause I’ve got 250 caps at the Dugout, with your name on it.”

“That’ll cover half,” Sun says as he moves back. “I’ll expect the rest promptly. Don’t come back anytime, soon.”

Deacon slides off the gurney and into a puddle on the floor. He starts laughing. “To not come back I have to actually be able to leave in the first place, doc.”

Nick helps him stand and braces most of his weight as Ellie slides his jacket over his shoulders and tries to get his arms into the holes. It’s like trying to get wet noodles through the eye of a needle. 

“Forget it, Ellie,” Nick says after she huffs in frustration and smacks Deacon’s shoulder. “He won’t feel the cold, anyways, and we’re not goin’ far.”

It’s a bit of trick trying to get Deacon hauled up the stairs, but with Nick holding most of his weight and Ellie shoving from behind, they manage to tumble out into the market. There’s a small of a crowd outside and as Nick drags him back to the agency, Deacon gives them exaggerated salutes.

“Wait, this isn’t the Dugout,” Deacon says when he sees the neon _Valentine Detective Agency_ sign.

“Ha! Like we’re taking you to that place. In the state you’re in? I don’t think so,” Ellie says and opens the door for Nick and him. “Sun may be wholly unconcerned with your wellbeing, but we’re not. Not after everything, that’s just happened.”

Ellie directs Nick to take Deacon back to her gravity fed shower. It’s tucked in the corner next to the bottom of the stairs. Deacon remembers being unreasonably jealous, when he first saw it, that she had a such a luxury when all he had was a too small tub of water to occasionally bathe in. He hadn’t seen a decent shower since the vault and she had preened when he commented on it. Apparently, Nick had built it for her when the agency was still slow and put all that handyman knowledge to good use. 

He’s absolutely giddy that he gets to use it. If this was the reward, he really needs to get shot more often.

“Don’t you dare,” she says. 

Oh, he’s said that aloud too. 

Ellie has completely taken control of the situation now. She shoves some towels in Nick’s arms once he’s gotten Deacon seated on the stairs and trots up to the other level to dig around for a set of sheets and a blanket for the bed downstairs. After a moment she throws a bundle down on the bed with a bit of a hook shot.

“I’m going to see Edna over at the school. Maybe they have some extra blankets,” Ellie says as she comes down the stairs. “Help him get undressed and into that shower. I’ll be right back.”

Then she’s gone.

A moment of awkward silence passes; Nick puts the towels on the stairs next to Deacon. 

“Do you need a hand?”

Deacon stares at Nick, uncomprehendingly. He’s so distracted by how bright Nick’s eyes are. Finally, the words filter into his brain.

“Uh, maybe undo my boots? I’ll probably fall over if I try it.”

Nick nods and kneels down. 

Deacon’s already half naked anyways and he certainly doesn’t need any help with his pants. Because, that would just be weird, right? Wanting Nick to help him out of his pants. Or, ya know, wanting Nick to press him into _the nearest wall_ while he helps him out of his pants. 

See, this was why he hates Med-X, too much self-introspection to be had when your usual mental compartments have become upturned boxes on the floor of your mind.

The synth makes short work of his laces and pulls his boots off, setting them under the stairs. He helps Deacon stand and Deacon gets to work on undoing the buckle on his tool belt, but the action of him trying to balance on the last step and bowing his head to see said buckle has him nearly toppling forward. Nick catches him with a huff of laughter because he’s utterly helpless right now he’s so fucked up on Med-X.

Nick leans him against the cinderblock wall, quickly pulling the leather tongue out of buckle’s prong and this is _way too close_ to that previous thought. He sets Deacon’s tool belt down on the stairs. Nick hesitates for a moment to undo the belt that Deacon’s wearing on his jeans (because if he doesn’t wear a belt, the armoured leg guards will just pull them right down his narrow hips and then where will he be? Half naked, that’s where. And probably in the middle of a fight, too.), the brim of his hat obscuring his eyes. Deacon really wants another glimpse of them, he needs something steady in the swirling smear that his vision. After a second, Nick tackles that too, then he steps back.

“You capable of getting the rest of that off in there?” Nick tips his head toward the shower.

“Definitely.” He gives it a moment's consideration. “Probably.” Deacon pushes off the wall and sways a bit. Nick grabs his arm. “Maybe more like fifty-fifty.”

Nick pulls back the heavy blue tarp that serves as the shower’s curtain. “Your odds are dropping by the moment.”

“Then, toss me in there, oh Great Valentine, lest I ask for your continued assistance.”

It's not so much of a ‘toss’ as it is a ‘helped him stepped into’, but Deacon likes to think it was in performed in the spirit of the request. After some careful maneuvering that _did not_ almost end with him coldcocking himself on the shower’s nobs, Deacon tosses the rest of his clothing out of the shower and dials the nobs. 

The water is warm, although not hot, but Deacon hardly cares. He barely feels the sensation of the water falling against his skin. He watches in fascination as the caked blood on his shoulder starts to loosen and slip away in a small trail down the plains of his chest and abdomen. 

After a couple minutes, hears the slam of the agency’s door and then the sound of Ellie’s voice. It snaps him out of his daze a bit and Deacon picks up a worn bar of homemade soap. He tries to make suds up between his hands, but like with the buckle, they’re too stupid to get much of a lather. So he just rubs it where ever he needs it and rinses under the spray. He stands for a moment in the small stall, after he’s turned the water off, and wonders how to get the towels that are still on the stairs when Ellie hands them through the curtain, careful to keep it mostly closed.

“Thanks,” Deacon says as he dries off.

“Of course,” she says. “I have a pair of sweats and a t-shirt here that I managed to wrangle from Becky for a few caps while Charlie teased me about buying a pair of men’s sweats. He think’s he _so_ funny.” Deacon can almost hear her eyes roll. 

He can hardly believe she went to Fallon’s Basement and bought him clothing.

“I’ve left them here on the stairs. Nick and I will be out front so you can get dressed.”

He hears the click of her heels on the concrete as she walks away and the murmur of Nick’s and her voices. Deacon wonders what they’re saying. Is Nick telling her about him flipping out? He wishes Nick hadn’t seen that, that he hadn’t seen The Lone Wanderer. 

Getting dressed under the influence of a Med-X high was even more difficult than it was getting undressed and Deacon trips as he is tugging the pants up knocks his shin on the stairs -oh, he’ll definitely feel that tomorrow- and hits the floor with a laughing curse. At least he’s back to being half dressed. A moment later Nick and Ellie appear and help him up. They lead him to the bed. It’s been made up for him, but he’s not especially tired. Ellie’s having none of it, though.

“You’ve been through a lot today and you need to rest,” Ellie says as she helps tug the t-shirt over his head. God, he feels like a little kid. “Though you might not feel it now, you will tomorrow.”

“She’s right, kid,” Nick agrees. He’s standing a little off to the side, smoking. Deacon wishes he was closer so he could better inhale the crisp smoke. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, but you’re in no shape to do that now.”

 _Oh good_ , Deacon thinks as Ellie pulls up the covers, _five months in and I've managed to blow my cover. Some spy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abraham Lincoln's quote is thus: _‘America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.’_
> 
> I like to think of the second half of this part as less of a dissociative disorder and more like what would happen to Bruce Wayne if he spent three years repressing the Batman. Only, ya know, with more killing.


	4. Radiating through and through, baby it's just you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _CLAUDIO: We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are_   
>  _high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten_   
>  _away. Wilt though use thy wit?_
> 
> _BENEDICT: It is in my scabbard: shall I draw it?_
> 
> _DON PEDRO: Dost thou wear thy wit by they side?_
> 
> _CLAUDIO: Never any did so, though very many have been beside_  
>  _their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the_  
>  _minstrels; draw, to pleasure us._
> 
> _-Much Ado About Nothing (5.1.122)_

Deacon wakes to the sound of voices and the pressing need to piss.

Shortly after he’s identified this, he registers the aching throb of his head and the need for some water. He thinks about getting up to relieve his bladder, but the voices in the next room stop him almost as much as the threatening spike of pain that lashes through his head the moment he moves it. What he wouldn’t give for a bit of that adapted alien biogel right about now. 

He wonders if he stood outside and waved his arms at the sky, would Sally notice him? Oh, right. Never mind. She wouldn’t even recognize him let alone see him. He wonders if Ellie keeps any aspirin around, but that’ll have to wait until after Piper leaves. Facing Nick is one thing, facing Piper is something else entirely.

“This is a huge breach of our safety, Nick,” Piper says, “People think these walls will always protect us, but they’re only as good as the guys watching them. The Mayor can pontificate all he wants, but it wasn’t DCS that tore those Deathclaws guys apart.”

“Yeah?” Nick asks, “Who was it then?”

Piper scoffs. “As if you don’t know. As if the whole city doesn’t know. Tom told me all about the tongue lashing Rhett gave the DCS. Not many people 'round here are willing to stand up for a synth, much less a replacement.”

“And that translates into their killer how?”

Is Nick covering for him? Why is Nick covering for him?

“Why are you giving me the runaround?” She makes a noise of frustration. “You know, I could really nail McDonough’s ass to the wall with this. Let me talk to Rhett.”

“He’s still out.”

“It’s been nearly a day.”

There’s a rustle of fabric; Nick probably shrugged his shoulders. “Med-X doesn’t agree with him.”

A moment of silence passes and Deacon can only image the look Piper is giving Nick. Then, there’s the scraping of a chair. 

“Fine. I’ll go. I can see when I’m not wanted, but don’t think you can keep him cooped up in here forever. I will talk with him,” Piper says and a moment later the door to the agency swings open and then shuts.

“Not before I do,” Nick says to the room.

Deacon decides he couldn’t have chosen a worse time to wake up and he would really like to try and go back to sleep, but he has to take a leak and some aspirin before he can even contemplate that. He still has to talk himself into getting out of bed, though. When he finally does, the ancient springs protest his shifting weight as he gingerly gets his feet on the floor. 

The wave of pain that washes over him in that moment makes him still and he silently begs for death. All this because of a _half_ a dose of Med-X and it still had him higher than an Old-World kite and babbling like an utter lunatic. At least he’s ingrained in himself the need to protect who he was at all costs, so nothing he said can pin him as anything other than Deacon, or even Rhett. Kind of wishes he hadn’t spilled all his daddy issues all over the floor in Sun’s clinic, though.

Deacon sees that his boots have been placed near the bed and thanks whoever did that because he was so not looking forward to wandering around on the concrete floors in the middle of winter with only his bare feet. He jams his feet into them and hisses at the pain in his one leg. Right, almost forget he banged it on the stairs. Won’t be able to now, though. He stands and almost sits back down on the bed again. The sensation of vertigo making him nauseated, but he still really needs to piss, so he presses on. 

Leaning heavily on the cinderblock walls, Deacon steps into the office proper. He flicks his eyes to Nick in acknowledgement, squinting in the too-bright lights, before he trundles back to the small toilet whose door lies tucked behind several filing cabinets. He uses every surface as a crunch in an attempt to make it back there, limping slightly on account of his shin. He feels Nick watching his progress, but the synth doesn’t offer to help.

The reason that Diamond City is the Commonwealth’s most successful establishment is not because of the generator that powers the city (impressive as it is), nor its large scale water purifier (though that certainly helps), but rather because of its luck for being slightly uphill from the Charles River and having intact sewer lines that run beneath it that a few clever founders managed to tap into.

There are a couple buckets of melting snow in the cramped bathroom that serve to fill the tank of the ancient toilet. When Deacon is finished, he pours one that is mostly melted and flushes. When he feels less like dying, he’ll gather some fresh snow to replace the water he used, but right now he washes his hands the slush of the other bucket and stumbles back out into the office. 

Nick presents him with several aspirins -likely raided from some stash of Ellie's- and a can of purified water. Deacon takes both gratefully. Nick directs him back to bed after he’s plucked the can out of Deacon’s hands. He’s glad Nick is willing to wait until all his wit and charm have returned because right now he feels like he has the mental capacity of a feral ghoul. 

When he wakes again, it’s because the door to the agency has slammed closed. For a second, he’s not even sure where he is, because this place does not look like his room at the Dugout Inn. Then it comes back to him. Right. Deacon’s at the agency after being hit with a shotgun blast after killing a bunch of Deathclaws and being spectacularly high on Med-X. Now comes the part where Nick and him and a good ole’ fashioned heart to heart.

__

Oh, goody.

__

Deacon rolls out of bed, feeling much better than before, but still like he has been hit by a raging deathclaw who took a nasty swipe at his leg. He finds his jeans, boxers, and socks on the pallet next to the bed looking like they’ve been down to the laundry mat at the Dugout Inn. He wishes Ellie wasn’t being so nice to him, it’s making feel like an utter heel. As he pulls them on he notes his bomber jacket is hanging on one of the steps of the staircase along with his both his belts and leg guards. His plasma pistol and knife are missing, though. 

If he had to guess, Nick has them. Probably as insurance, so he doesn’t just slip out. 

He threads the one belt through his jeans and grabs his jacket, checking the pockets. Then the pockets on his jeans. A moment of panic lances through him. His holotape is gone! Deacon goes through everything again: checking the inside of his boots, the bedding, under the bed, through the cracks in the pallet, all the while become more and more panicked as he comes up empty handed. He shoves his feet in boots and flies out into the office. 

Ellie is gone. It was probably her slamming the door that woke him. Nick is sitting at his desk, with his feet propped on a small stack of boxes as he picks through a case file.

“Where is it?” Deacon demands. He doesn’t care if Nick has his weapons, but he can’t let _anyone_ have that holotape. “I had a holotape in my jeans; it’s gone. _Where is it?_ ”

A flash of surprise flits over Nick’s face, probably because of Deacon’s tone -which is pretty close to desperate. He reaches over and opens a drawer. After a moment of digging around, Nick comes up with a small flash of orange. He tosses it and Deacon snatches it out of the air like a feral ghoul catching a bloodied steak. He turns the tape in his hands, checking to make sure that it is actually his tape. He finds the small, worn ‘E’ he scratched on the surface all those years ago and relaxes. He shoves the holotape in his pocket and turns to collect the rest of his stuff.

Deacon considers asking if Nick used the tape, but there aren’t any terminals in the agency and he likes to think he knows Nick and Ellie better than that. Plus, utter destruction hasn’t rained down on the Commonwealth since he’d been out; at least, not that he can tell. He also knows that Nick has filed that particular reaction away and may ask about the holotape again in the future. Hopefully, that’s a future after he has left Diamond City.

When Deacon comes back out to the office, gear in a messy bundle that he plops onto Ellie’s desk, he grabs her chair and pulls it over to Nick. He knows he won’t get his weapons back without talking first to Nick; it is better to have it out and then leave. Just part ways with as little information exchanged and as quickly as possible. He swings his leg over the seat and sits with his arms folded over the back of the chair. He wonders if his sunglasses are still on the floor of Sun’s clinic because he could really use them right about now.

Nick picks up a smoldering cigarette from his ash tray and stares at Deacon for a long time, smoke curling out of the hole in the side of his synthetic face. It fascinates Deacon; the way it hits the brim of Valentine’s hat, momentarily hesitant about where to go next before finding a path around and snaking further up. Nick might be waiting for Deacon to crack and speak first, but for all his fast-talking chatter, Deacon doesn’t _need_ to talk. Nick will be waiting a long time if he thinks a stare-down will intimidate Deacon.

“So, Rhett -that wouldn’t happen to be Rhett Butler, now would it?”

Deacon flashes Nick a grin. All his considerable charm and wit are about to be brought to bear, but he knows better than most that Nick Valentine reads between the lines, between the _lies._ Deacon’s may have had a head start here, but Nick will catch up in no time.

“Yeah, thought so. Do you mind explaining just what you're doing in my town, kid? And don’t feed me some bull 'bout being a merc, I’ve known you weren’t one since we first met. No real merc risks his life without the promise of caps.”

“You suddenly wishin’ that I didn’t walk into your gin join, Nick? After that display I put on, can’t say I blame you.”

Nick lets out a curl of smoke. “Well, that’s the rub; ‘cause it’s not about what you did, but rather how you went about it. I thought we were friends, but I see now that you haven’t been straight with me about who you are or why you’re here. I’m beginning to wonder why you ever did. Walk into my gin joint, that is.”

“Who doesn’t want to live in the Commonwealth’s Great Green Jewel? Or settle down here and have a family? Or watch as the Mayor and guards do nothing about abductions or bodies displayed at their gates? This place is a real peach.”

“Ain’t it _just,_ ” Nick drawls. “Okay, how about an easy question then, what’s your real name, kid? Cause we both know it ain’t Rhett.”

“It could be, ya know. Maybe my mom was a fan of _‘Gone with the Wind’_.”

“If it was, then you woulda responded to be me when I called your name back in that square, but the only thing you responded to was ‘kid’. I’m guessing that’s because Rhett isn't your real name. Somehow ‘kid’ has more meaning than your supposed name.”

“You’re too clever for your own good, Nick. Ever think of becoming a detective?” 

Nick stares at him, mouth curling into a frown as he taps the ash from the end of his cigarette. Deacon hates that look of disappointment and so he decides, against his better judgement, to give Nick a piece of the puzzle. He can’t come clean about The Railroad -it’s not his place to recruit tourists or agents, and to be honest, he’s not a hundred percent sure The Institute can’t just send an agent and turn Nick Valentine against Diamond City or against _them_ if he knew. 

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint; my real name is something I never give out. But hey, in the spirit of the awesome team we’ve made these last few months I'll tell you what most people around these parts call me: Deacon.”

“You religious, kid?”

Deacon kind of laughs, no one else at The Railroad picked up on that. “Let’s just say, it’s somewhat of a family tradition to be interested in things from the bible, but I’m not especially religious.”

“Okay, Deacon, now about why you’re here?”

“Ah, sorry. That’s also something I can’t answer, but I can promise you I’m not here to do any harm. In fact, I’m not even supposed to get involved, but you saw how well that worked out. I’m not very good at stayin’ outta trouble; I’m like this magnet for it or something.”

“No denying that.” Nick crushes his cigarette out.

“So, knowing more or less, nothing more than what you knew before, what’s your verdict, detective? Am I bad news for this jewel? Or am I hero she needs but not the one she deserves?”

Nick pulls his feet under himself and leans forward in his chair. “Well, I can accept that you’re not here to do harm to Diamond City, that much, at least, is obvious. There’s not many people ‘round these parts that are willing to stand up for a synth, much less a replacement or kill the men that killed one of ‘em. Though, you should have taken a moment to assess the situation before rushin’ in headlong like that.”

Deacon shrugs his shoulders and gives a self-deprecating grin. If Nick’s not going to mention The Wanderer beyond that, Deacon certainly isn’t. However, he also knows that given enough time, Nick will put it all together. That’s his job after all. Deacon just has to be gone when that happens. 

“However, I can’t put my trust in someone who can’t or won’t come clean about themselves. I get that you have secrets -hell, we all do- but you being unable to talk about why you’re in my town doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t need your life story, but I also don’t need another reason to stay up at night worryin’ about another group of people watchin’ this place.”

“Hey, I totally get that. No hard feelings. I’ll just grab my things and get outta your non-existent hair.” Deacon stands and slides his torn jacket on. He’ll have to stop by the Science Center and repair it somehow; find another plate to shove in it. 

Nick pulls Deacon's plasma pistol and knife from the bottom drawer of his desk and hands them to Deacon. When he has all his things together and his hand on the door, Deacon looks back at Nick. 

“So, a few things before I go. First, I’d appreciate it if you kept the whole ‘Deacon’ thing to yourself. Believe it or not, I do have a mission to complete in this place and it’s not going to get done if you go around telling people my name isn’t actually Rhett.”

Nick looks at him for a moment, contemplating the request. After a moment, he gives a short nod.

“Thanks. Second, I want you to know that if you ever need a gun to watch your back, I’m totally there. I know you don’t trust me, but you know I am good to have in a firefight-” Nick snorts a little, but there’s a hint of a smile and Deacon will take what he can get. “Third, I just wanna say thanks. I appreciate everything you and Ellie have done for me, you know like saving my life and putting up with me while I was high.”

Nick’s smile gets a little wider; softer. “You’re welcome, kid.”

Deacon opens the door. “See ya around, Valentine.”

It clicks shut with a finality that doesn’t sit right with Deacon. He doesn’t want to leave it like that, but it’s best that he does. Whether or not Nick realizes it, he already knows Deacon better than anyone has in a long time.

\- - - - -

As he picks his way across the streets to the Dugout Inn, Deacon notes that most of the people he meets aren’t too keen on acknowledging his presence. Diamond City is a pretty insular group of people and outsiders are treated with some suspicion when they initially arrive. Deacon hasn’t technically been a stranger for some months now, but it seems that all the goodwill he had accumulated during the previous months has vanished in face of him sticking up for a synth replacement. 

It’s even more apparent in the hush that falls over the patrons in the Dugout Inn that he’s no longer a welcome face. He still plasters a friendly expression on, even as he chastises himself for getting on the bad side of these people. Deacon knows he couldn’t have done anything in face of what The Deathclaws did to the young synth that had replaced Barbra Long, so he supposes he will just have to earn back their trust the hard way. If things keep going like this, he might be here longer than a year.

All Deacon wants to do is throw his crap him in room, lie on the bed, and wallow in a little, deserved self-pity before he goes out tonight to make a report and buy a new pair of sunglasses from Percy, but Vadim is waving him over to the bar and right now he needs all the good will he can get. 

“Rhett; come, sit. Have a drink,” he says.

“Oh, alright. You twisted my arm.” Deacon sits on a bar stool and drapes the clothing Ellie bought him over one leg; his leg guards are hanging off one elbow. He had buckled his plasma holster, knife, and tool belt back on outside of Nick’s door. It was easier than trying to juggle it all in the slippery snow-covered walkways. 

Vadim gives him a bit of a smile and pours him a Bobrov’s Best and Nuka Cola. There is one good thing about the cold weather at least, cold Nuka-Cola. 

“Is it true, then? About Barbra Long? She was synth replacement?”

Deacon wants to wheel away from the bar then. He is not going to sit here and gossip about that poor girl.

“Seems like.”

“And you killed men responsible for her death?”

Deacon takes a large swallow of his drink. Maybe if he can finish it quickly he can get out of here. “Yep.”

Vadim nods. “Good. Do not get me wrong, I don't like synth replacements, but Tom was in here talking about how they cut her up and that is wrong, no matter the person. And who knows, next it could have been one of us. You saved us a lot of trouble, Rhett.”

“No problem. That’s what I’m here for, right? To clean up Diamond City’s messes." That came out a little more bitter than he wanted. He tries for a little more levity. "And hey, there may not have been a bounty posted on the Wanted board, but never let it be said I don’t take the initiative.”

“Of course not, but you should not have had to do DCS’s job for them. I am glad, though, that you did. Between you and Nick, we will have nothing to fear from synths and raiders.” Vadim flashes him a wide grin.

Deacon likes his enthusiasm, as misplaced as it is. There are a great many things to fear in the Commonwealth. He gives Vadim one of his winning smiles, the kind that used to have the entire Capital Wasteland bending to his whims, even though right now, the last thing he wants to do is smile. 

“I’ll drink to that!”

A dark coat settles in next to Deacon at the bar. 

“ _Rhett_ ,” Piper says, drawing his name out.

“ _Piper_ ,” Deacon replies, mimicking her tone.

She turns to Vadim, “Can I get a beer?”

Vadim nods and fetches one while Piper lights a cigarette. When Vadim returns, Piper drags it and Deacon to a nearby table. He snatches an ashtray from another table before taking a seat. He doesn’t understand why the Bobrov brothers don’t have enough ashtrays to go around, especially when almost everyone smoked. Deacon’s always coming across them in the ruins of Boston. One of these days he is going to come back with a pillow case full of them and dump them on the bar. 

“So,” Piper starts, settling into her chair. “Are you like some narcoleptic princess that has to be woken with a kiss or something? Because every time you get a little life threatening injury you’re out for like two days.”

Her comment startles bright, lively, _genuine_ laughter out of Deacon and he laughs for a good thirty seconds while Piper stares on in smug satisfaction.

“If I’m the princess, then Nick’s my prince: always there to make sure I wake up again,” Deacon says in a saccharine tone when he’s quieted some.

“Does he bestow a kiss upon his fair maiden, or what?”

Deacon presses a dramatic hand to his heart, “I fear for my maidenly honour should I answer that question. Nay! Do not ask me to give you an answer. I beg of thee!”

Piper starts laughing.

“Princess-y enough for you?”

“Oh yeah. Might even be too much, but hey, if that’s what Nick goes for.” Piper leans forward, flicking ash off her cigarette. “Let’s talk U.P. Deathclaws and Barbra Long.”

Deacon throws his arm over the back of his chair, his good mood vanishing. “Not exactly my favourite subject, Piper.”

“Hey, give me some credit. I’m not asking for gory details, hell, I’ve already seen what’s left of the Deathclaws over by the rails. You may not realize it, but your little speech stirred a lot of the DCS guards into greater action. McDonough has been content to ignore the abductions that are taking place outside our Walls, but this has proven that we aren’t safe here and we certainly aren’t safe with a leader who won’t acknowledge the danger.”

“It sounds like you’ve got it all handled. Dibs on the first copy.”

Piper blows out a curl of smoke and points her cigarette at Deacon. “My voice isn’t enough. Look, you’re a worldly merc and you have lots of admirers here in town-”

Deacon lets out a snort. “You’d think a journalist would have a better handle on this town’s mood.”

“Are the people scared? You bet your life they are. And sure, you sticking up for a synth replacement hasn’t made you any new friends, but what you said about Nick made a lot of people stop and think. For all his yellow eyes and torn skin, most people don’t even see Nick as a synth. What's more, they didn’t realize, until you pointed it out, that there are monsters that lurk in the Commonwealth that might want to take him from us.”

“Still not seeing where I come in, Piper.”

“That’s because you’re being purposefully obtuse, you dolt, so stop it. I want you to tell me exactly what you said to the guards. I’ve gotten bits and pieces, but I want to hear it from you. And I want you to tell me why we need to care about synths, all synths -not just the one who’s the neon heart of our town.” 

“Ooo, that’s a good line. You should totally use it in one of your articles.”

“Laugh all you want, but you know it's true.” She takes a long drag from her cigarette. “This is the beginning of dark times for us, I can feel it, and someone needs to speak plainly about it to Diamond City. Lord knows that won’t come from the Mayor’s office, but I think we can offer a measure of hope. Help me do that. Please.”

Deacon stares at Piper for a long while. He knows he should help; he also knows that should keep his head down and not attract any further attention to himself. But hell, he’s always had a soft spot for a fiery brunette. He makes a big deal of making up his mind.

“Okay, okay, your flowery talk of a better tomorrow convinced me. I’ll help you stick it to the Man.”

Piper gives him wide smile.

That night he types up a detailed report of the incident with the Deathclaws, the synth The Institute replaced Barbra Long with, and the high likelihood that they will try something similar around University Point -both The Deathclaws and The Insititute. Deacon leaves out the majority of the details surrounding the death of The Deathclaws, other than to say that he did it along with Nick’s help. He would lie about it outright, but he has little doubt that other agents or tourists have heard about it and he’s trying to curb the amount of bullshit he’s feeding to HQ until he’s cleared of the suspicion of treason. 

The next day, he gives Sun half the caps he owes and the good doctor gives him a once over to make sure he’s not suffering any ill effects from his Med-X encounter. The man may have a shitty bedside manner, but he is a hell of a doctor -it’s almost as if he’s vault trained. Carrington and Sun should get together and have the first annual 'Crabby Doctors Conference'. They could talk about annoyingly-careless patients and the best way to craft a cuttingly-sarcastic remark; they’d probably be besties in no time.

After Sun has declared him healthy, but by no means sane, Deacon talks with Becky and Charlie down in Fallon’s Basement about a replacement for his bomber jacket. He’s pretty fond of the thing, but it's clear that he’ll be unable to repair it. Charlie thinks otherwise; the man even has a few ideas on how to improve its defensive capabilities, but it means leaving it in the tailor’s capable hands for a few days. That’s okay, though, he doesn’t have plans to leave Diamond City for a while and somehow he doubts he’ll be getting any work for a couple of weeks anyways.

February melts into March and so does the snow. Barring any major inclement weather, they won’t see it again until November, but it does leave Diamond City a muddy, slippery mess. It’s particularly bad near the wilted remains of the crops, but the transient farmers won’t be back in town until at least April. Until then, Deacon will just have to dream about fresh tatoes and mutfruit.

Piper’s article goes over about as well as Deacon suspects it would. She’s calling out a number of uncomfortable truths and if there is any universal truth in the world it's that people often prefer that comforting lie. However, there is some change within the city. People have begun to realize that The Institute doesn’t just take wandering scavers or drifters from Goodneighbour, they aren’t only snatching people from Quincy or University Point, but _them_ as well. Their family and their friends. Diamond City’s Walls can’t protect them from an enemy that can materialize in the middle of the night and leave just a quickly. 

They can’t protect them from one that might already _be_ here.

He picks up a few odd jobs in March and tags along with Nick twice. It’s considerably less than what Deacon had been up to, but at least Nick took him seriously when he said he would be there to help if needed. Both times it’s a particularly nasty case of raiders that Nick needs a hand with and they fall back into old banter and seamless combat easily. Deacon pretends that nothing has happened. He’s not entirely sure Nick appreciates this, but Deacon’s already made it clear he’s not going to talk about why he’s in Diamond City. Still, he dislikes how The Railroad hangs over them like a coming radiation storm. 

That’s the price of survival, he supposes. 

When April rolls around, Deacon gets a message from Sly Nick about placing a permanent agent in Diamond City sometime in the summer. They’re still trying to find one that will fit in the with the city without drawing too much suspicion and one that a merc might have reason to know, but he knows they’ll figure it out. Until then, Deacon has to redouble his efforts to be reaccepted by the place. People haven’t missed that he and Nick seem to be spending less time together these days, or that Ellie hasn’t been seen sitting at his table in the Dugout Inn. 

It right around the time of that message, that a young couple walks into the Dugout Inn.

The weather is just starting to get nice and it won’t be long before Deacon has to exchange his bomber jacket out for something lighter. He’s already in talks with Charlie. His repair and redesign of Deacon’s jacket is nothing short of genius and Deacon is happy to let Charlie worry about how to transition into the summer. Deacon’s never been especially good at modifying armour -he can and has in the past, but he’s always relied on finding really great armour and then modifying it to suit him rather than building something from scratch. Becky is no doubt rubbing her hands together in glee over all the caps that Deacon has been spending in their place lately. 

Deacon takes note of everyone that steps into the Dugout Inn. He makes it a Sherlockian game of how well can he deduce their life from their appearance and mannerisms. He had the natural and unpolished skill of reading people back in the Capital, but he’s taken it as a personal challenge to become at least as good _that_ consulting detective. At the very least, it helps keep the boredom at bay. 

Okay, now he’s sounding like Holmes and he’s _way_ more charming that dude, but the boredom is a very real thing when he’s not out on a job or passing the time with Nick. 

It’s late morning when the couple steps in. Vadim greats them with his usual loud, boisterous manner as Deacon watches from his table. There’s only him and two passing caravaners in the bar and the couple easily draws his attention; however, it’s the rifle on the man’s back that keeps his attention. It’s a wicked, gleaming thing that looks like it might pull the slender man backwards under its weight. And long, boy was it long. Sniper rifle must be. Deacon’s never been much for rifles or anything that wasn’t a fueled by cells, but a good sniper is worth his or her weight in caps. 

Deacon travelled with one while he was picking his way north after he left the Capital Wasteland. He joined up as a guard with a group of scavers and caravaners on their way to the ruins of New York. Her name was Bekka. She was a quiet thing that spent most of the time scanning the horizon or crumbling buildings, but she knew when to laugh at Deacon’s endless stream of chatter and how to destroy raiders from 850 yards. 

It was a hell of a thing to watch her work. The calmness of her posture, the ease of her hands on her rifle as she slid the bolt back and forth to reload, the calculation that went into every shot, the patience to wait for just the _right moment_. Bekka decided stayed in New York and Deacon travelled on with a healthy paranoia of tall buildings, hills, and sparkling glints of light in the distance. 

Deacon tips his chair back on two legs and watches with renewed interest the proceedings at the bar. Behind him, he hears Scarlett’s noise of annoyance and Deacon tosses her a grin over his shoulder. She keeps telling him not to abuse the chairs as he does, but he doesn’t listen. Because really, when did Rhett ever listen to Scarlett? 

Vadim is chattering on and on, asking what they’re doing in town, how long they want to stay, and informing them that the Dugout Inn has the best rooms. The _only_ rooms, Deacon silently amends. The young woman has gleaming dark hair and clean, slightly olive toned skin, but she’s looking worn. Like a sheet that has seen too many reuses. She smiles and laughs at all the right places -it’s a very nice laugh- but even from his angle, Deacon can see wants to crawl away somewhere and sleep. She clings tightly to the young man and tries to direct the conversation back to rooms. 

_For Godssakes Vadim,_ he thinks, _stop talking and let that poor girl get some rest._

Vadim just chats on. Now he’s asking the young man what he does for caps and points at the rifle sling across the man’s back. It’s the woman that answers: solider. She says in such an endearingly sweet way and completely misses the way the man pulls back, just a little bit. Deacon wants to laugh, yeah, a soldier of fortune is more like it. The man doesn’t have the demeanour of a soldier: his posture is all wrong, he barely spared the other patrons in the bar a look, and he probably wouldn’t even make the weight requirement for an actual military organization like The Brotherhood or The Enclave.

Finally, Yefim appears from the back, tells Vadim to quit talking so much, and directs the young woman to room #2. The young man follows, but Deacon saw Vadim pointing to his table and knows that the man will be back out to talk with him. Lucky for him, Deacon might have a use for a sniper.

Sly Nick mentioned in the update that the route to Dayton house (a.k.a Milton General Hospital -the Railroad is probably _really_ uncomfortable with him knowing the locations of pretty much all their safehouses) was being compromised due to Gunner activities in the area. It wasn’t exactly worded as: ‘Deacon go take care of this’ because he _is_ currently on assignment, but right now the Railroad is consolidated around Kilo house and probably can’t spare a heavy to clear a route to a lesser safehouse. 

He thought about asking Nick for his help on it, but that would involve too many questions that Deacon can’t answer. This man, though, this merc, he won’t ask anything other than, 'how much do I get paid and when?' Besides, Glory’s pockets are probably overflowing with Railroad compensation right now and he could use a few of those caps tossed his way.

Sure enough, the young man makes his way to Deacon’s table about ten minutes later.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks.

Deacon kicks out a chair with his foot. Without falling from his own perch. Oh yeah, he’s mastered this skill.

“Not at all, pal.”

The man takes a seat and Deacon gets a good look at him. Scruffy, almost unkempt, but in a dashing kind of way. He’s got several weeks of beard growth going on, and by the way, he’s scratching at, it’s not his norm. It makes him look older from a distance, but now that Deacon’s had the chance to see him up close, it’s clear he can’t be much more than twenty. He sprawls in the chair, casual and at ease. Oh yeah. This kid is a merc. Through and through.

“So the bartender, Vadim, right? He was talking pretty fast; not sure I’m saying it right.”

“You got it.”

“Good, ‘cause he said you were Diamond City’s resident merc and I’m hoping to pick up a job or two while we’re here, but I don’t wanna step on any toes. So, I figured I’d come by and introduce myself.” He holds out his hand for Deacon to shake. “MacCready.”

Deacon’s eyes widen slightly behind his glasses as he tips his chair back to the ground to shake MacCready’s hand. _No way_ , he thinks, _can’t be._

“Rhett. Though, I’m pretty easy going so you needn’t worry too much about that.” Deacon tips his chair back up, but not before he snatches an ashtray off a nearby table -Scarlett knows he doesn’t smoke so she never leaves one on his. MacCready though, he’s got nicotine stains all over his fingers. “I try to be menacing, ya know? But it usually comes off as more clownish than scary -though for some people that might just do it.”

MacCready smirks. “Yeah, I get that. Not a lot of guys think I’m especially scary either, but there’s little better than picking a guy off at 900 yards and watching the panic of his pals. BOOM, motherfucker!” He laughs. 

“That’s impressive, to be sure. If it were true.”

“Hey, if I’m lyin’ I’m fuckin’ dyin’.”

Deacon leans forward, chair clunking to the ground. “Yeah? Well, I might have something for a pair of oddball mercs like us.”

Embarrassment and eagerness war on MacCready’s face for a moment, before embarrassment wins out. “Pretty obvious I’m a merc, huh? Shit.”

“’Fraid so, pal, but I’m not looking at you through the lens of love, either. Elle voit la vie en rose.”

“Uh, what?”

Deacon smiles and shakes his head. He’s not sure why he even bothers sometimes. “Your pretty lady is looking at life through rose coloured glasses. Specifically, looking at you. The literal translation is ‘she sees life in pink’. Come on, you’ve never heard Louis slay ‘La Vie En Rose’?”

MacCready shakes his head, giving Deacon a weird look.

“Kids these days, no love for the classics, but I guess the more important question here is: do you want to hear about the job?”

“Don’t know,” MacCready says, fishing out a pack of cigarettes. “are you going to keep talking that weird shit and being completely strange?”

Deacon grins. “That’s about the extent of my French, I’m afraid -my copy of _‘Within a Budding Grove’_ was translated. However, being ‘completely strange’ is part of my charm.”

”Yeah, not sure ‘charm’ is the right word for it, Rhett. But, what the hell, I’ll bite. What’s the job?” MacCready asks as he strikes a match for his cigarette.

“Got a fairly regular employer that wants a group of Gunners wiped out. South of here, several hours walk. 500 caps, 250 each, plus whatever we can scrounge from their corpses. And with Gunners that usually means lots of caps and guns that can be sold for more caps. Yay! Problem is, you have to beat all that fire power first before you can start counting your caps. It’s too difficult for me alone, but with your rifle and my stealth boy we could do some serious damage.”

“They’re a bunch of mean assholes, that’s for sure. Ran across a few while we were down in Quincy. Had a really great ‘fuck off’ vibe, ya know?”

“Definitely them. Step up from raider, step down from Brotherhood.”

“Now there are some grade-A assholes. Fucking Brotherhood. Somebody should tell them to get off their high-fucking-horse.”

“Preach it, brother!”

MacCready snorts. “What the fuck, I’m in. When were you thinking of doing this?”

“A.S.A.P. Dawn too early for you?”

“No. Could use a few supplies, though.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a dedicated weapons merchant in this jewel, but Myrna usually has a bunch of miscellaneous ammo. Don’t try and be especially nice to her ‘cause then she’ll think you are a synth and won’t let you shop at her store. Doc Sun has a stash of stimpaks for sale and Chem-I-Care for any other pick-me-up’s you might need.”

“Not really into chems anymore, but I could go for some food. Options?”

“Scarlett here makes a mean mac and cheese, but if this is your first time in the Great Green Jewel, then you should try Power Noodles. When Takahashi asks you his gibberish, just say ‘Yes’ and hold up your fingers for the amount you want. Kinda pricey, but it’ll be the best food you’ll ever eat.”

“Thanks, think I will.” MacCready stands, tapping some of the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Where do you want to meet?”

“I rent a room here, so we’ll probably bump into one another around the right time. We’ll also have to stop at Goodneighbour to sell most of the loot, so pack for at least two days, yeah?”

“Will do. Catch ya later.”

Deacon nods and MacCready picks his way to back his room.

\- - - - -

It’s a chilly April morning when they set out. Frost clings to every surface, making the concrete slippery beneath their feet. Deacon directs MacCready in the time honoured Diamond City tradition of putting a hand on Sammy Swatter’s shoulder for good luck; the same way Nick showed him. The patina of the copper is nearly worn away on the statue’s right shoulder. 

They walk in silence through the ruins of Boston; MacCready watching the buildings for signs of snipers and Deacon watching for signs of raiders or super mutants on the ground. MacCready seems somewhat jumpy with all the tall building overhead, so Deacon hums quietly to himself rather than outright whistle. He wouldn’t want to startle the man and end up with a great big hole in his chest after all he’s survived. 

Deacon steers them to the old NH&M Freight Depot, skirting around the rationing site. As the city starts to give way, and they pass under the train bridge, MacCready relaxes somewhat. He’s still vigilantly watching for anything that might look like an ambush or a glinting scope, but it’s clear his previous tenseness was due to the crumbling ruins of Boston. Deacon can hardly blame him; they aren’t his favourite place either. 

It’s a several hour walk through what was once considered countryside but is now fondly referred to as ‘wasteland’, to Fairline Hill Estates. Sly Nick said the Gunners were hold up in that small community, using it as a base to cause problems for the runners to and from Dayton house -about 20 minutes south from Fairline. Deacon can see the start of green to poke through the dense brown of their surroundings. By the time summer rolls around, it will be more green than brown, but that horrid colour pretty much refuses to be completely gone. 

Maybe one day the world will be full of green again like it surely once was. Not exactly the same, though, not the apple pie America that Eden talked about it. More like the mosaic Moira once described. 

“Ya know,” MacCready says, drawing Deacon’s attention, “I still can’t get over how nice it is here. Boston may be in ruins, but at least it’s not a giant fucking irradiated crater like D.C. Not sure people ‘round here get how fucking lucky they are.”

He certainly has all of Deacon’s attention now, because wouldn’t that just beat all if this young man was that pain-in-the-ass kid?

“I can assure you, they most certainly don’t. You from the illustrious Capital Wasteland? Or have you just visited our great nation’s capital?”

“Grew up there but headed north after I found my experience in a grown-up town wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. What with all the Brotherhood assholes everywhere. Can’t walk in that place without tripping over one those power armoured—” 

“Boy scouts?” Deacon gleefully interjects. Not that he doesn’t like MacCready’s colourful turn of phrase, but he just can’t resist. “With access to some antiquated technology?”

MacCready gives him a weird look. “…Yeah, actually.”

“Who have had the audacity to claim this country most important military installation, The Pentagon, as their own personal clubhouse?”

He can repeat all of Eden’s speeches in his head, backward and forward. There was a time when that man’s promise of a better tomorrow was all that kept him going while his dad seemed perpetually out of reach. Deacon will forever be disappointed that Eden’s better tomorrow was to be built on the blood of today’s. 

“Wait, I know that… I’ve heard that before. Long time ago.” MacCready gives Deacon an appraising look. “You from the Capital too?”

“Nah, but I did spend some time there around ’78 while that whole Brotherhood-Enclave thing was going on. That line just stuck with me, ya know? Seem to perfectly describe the Brotherhood back then.”

“Yeah, well it don’t anymore. They’ve turned into a bunch of fucking fanatics; hell, maybe they always were. But whatever happened, they stopped fightin’ the good fight. They even chased off The Lone Wanderer. Or maybe they killed him. Fuck if I know.”

Deacon scrunches up his face as if trying to remember something. “Lone Wanderer? Wasn’t that the kid that crawled out of a vault or something?”

“Oh, come on! You mean to tell me you spent time in the Capital and you don’t know the fucking Lone Wanderer? The Kid from Vault 101? The Saint of the Purifier? Mr. One-Hundred-One himself?”

Deacon bursts into laughter. This is utterly unreal. “He sounds like some loopy chem experiment: ‘Sugar and spice and everything nice!’ Wait, that’s a cake.”

MacCready laughs. “Yeah. He had this reputation of being a veritable saint in the Capital and I kinda thought he would be this massive judgmental prick, but he wasn’t. Or at least, he tried not to be. I think that’s what really mattered, ya know?” MacCready sounds wistful. “Like, even when he came to Little Lamplight, where I grew up,—” This really is _that_ MacCready. Holy shit. “—he was highly skeptical of our ‘kids only’ community, but he didn’t talk down to us. He just wanted to help. God, he always wanted to help. That’s probably what did him in. I mean, how can you fucking give that much of yourself to people and never get anything back?”

Deacon is suddenly quiet, the smile on his face gone. It’s not the comment per say, helping others has always paid him in full (rarely with caps, but rather the promise to pay it forward. He dismantled an entire hostile army with it —people flocked from all over the Capital to help _him_ help the Brotherhood take back the purifier, to return a favour, to pay that kindness forward, to take part in reshaping the Capital for the better), but rather the tone of frustration MacCready’s voice holds. Like he’s angry on Wanderer’s behalf, angry that the Wanderer’s _gone_.

“Hey, sorry man. I don’t mean to be such a downer,” MacCready says when he notes Deacon’s silence. “Or spill my life’s history on our first outing. That’s pretty fucking embarrassing, actually.”

Deacon flashes him a grin. “Hey, no worries. I just have one of those faces, ya know? The kind where complete strangers feel the need to share the stories of their lives with me without the pesky preamble of a friendship.”

“Oh man, I feel sorry for you. The weirdos that must just run their jaw while you’re around.”

Deacon gives him a pointed look and MacCready starts laughing again. He decides that he likes the young man that the Mayor of Little Lamplight has grown into. 

They walk for about another hour before they hear gunfire in the distance. Like a pair of radstags that have caught a yao guai’s scent, they dash into the sparse woods for some cover. When they are well away from the road, they take a moment to consider where the gunfire is coming from. Deacon figures that they are about ten minutes west of Fairline Estates and it seems that someone has already picked a fight with the Gunners. That’s totally alright by him. 

Though the woods aren’t that dense, it's impossible to see the Estates clearly from them. MacCready suggests finding some higher ground for them to get a better look at the situation and for him to set up on. Deacon leads them further west into the woods and the closer they get to the Estates, the better they can hear the laser fire that is happening under the popping sound of assault rifles. 

“Hey, I think I see something in the distance,” MacCready says, pointing to something glimmering a little southwest of them. “Could be useful.”

Deacon nods and they head toward the glinting object. It quickly becomes clear that it's an old camping trailer. 

“Perfect,” MacCready says when they approach. “Between the slight ground elevation and this, I should have a pretty good view of what’s happening down there.”

They toss their bags in a heap next to the trailer’s rusted hitch and Deacon laces his fingers together to hand MacCready up. He scrambles to the top, boots slipping a bit on the rounded metal of the trailer. He sets his gun up with practiced ease and before he settles himself on the metal roof, tosses his binoculars to Deacon.

As they observe the scene taking place in Fairline Hill Estates, Deacon curses to himself. Sly Nick did not mention that it was a small garrison of Gunners that had made themselves at home in the ruins of that community. It had sounded like a five or six guys making life hell for Dayton, not the twenty or so Deacon had already picked out. Oh, he is so going to take issue with the poor reporting of this when he gets back to Diamond City. _If_ he gets back to Diamond City.

The Gunners are currently in a firefight with some unseen group that was holed up in a house on the west side of the community, it looks like five or so people with laser rifles, but Deacon can’t get a clear view of them. Anyone who engages with the Gunners without the promise of caps is either crazy or heroic. Probably both. 

“So, this is way fucking more than what I expected. 250 caps aren't enough for this shit," MacCready says. "There’s gotta be like 20 of those assholes down there. 19,” he corrects a moment later.

Deacon lowers the binoculars and looks up at MacCready. “I am equally surprised and pissed off Mac. This was so not what was intimated in the job description and I will be taking loud exception to it if we get back-”

“You’re really fillin’ me with confidence here, Rhett,” MacCready sarcastically interrupts.

“ _But_ whoever is currently shooting at the Gunner looks like the enemy of our enemy. Could be useful. That is if you still want to do this. We could just walk back into this fine spring morning and forget we were here.”

MacCready lets his head fall to the metal roof with a growl. After a moment his head comes back up. “I really need the fucking caps and there has got to be at least 2,000 in weapons and armour alone over there.” MacCready sighs. “This is probably the stupidest fucking thing I have ever done, but let’s do it.”

“Gotta love that entrepreneurial spirit. If we’re going to successfully take out these guys, we’ll have to make a coordinated attack with whoever is shooting at them. Can’t have any of them trying picking you off, right?”

“Right.”

“Do you see who’s in charge of the Gunners? Is there one guy with like an outrageous amount of armour on or like swinging the biggest over-compensator there? I don’t have the best view from down here.”

MacCready looks back through his scoop, checking the area. “Yeah. It’s a woman, though. She’s directing the Gunners around and she’s got a big fucking laser rifle to boot.” MacCready looks down at Deacon. “Is it over-compensating if it’s a woman?”

Deacon shrugs. “Guess that depends on how well she uses it.”

“Kinda hoping I don’t have to find out.”

“Ditto. So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll go and have a chat with our brothers-in-arms, give me ten minutes and then start takin’ them out. Might want to start with their leader, if you can get a good bead on her. If you haven’t taken her out by the third shot, I’ll try and get up close and personal. If you do, I’ll work on those Gunners in that house on the east side of town. What’da think? Not bad, right?”

“I think I’m going to fucking die before I get to meet my kid.”

Deacon looks at MacCready in some surprise. Shit. Though, that did explain why his pretty lady was so worn out looking. 

“We can still leave, pal. Totally up to you here.”

MacCready settles his face against the rifle’s stock. “No. I said I’d do this, so let’s just fucking do this. Countdown begins now.”

MacCready looks to where Rhett was standing, meaning to give a pointed look to get the fuck moving, but the man is already gone. Huh, he hadn’t even heard him move.

\- - - - -

Deacon dashes through the woods. Keeping his frame tucked low and using the cover of any trees or rock as he goes. Right now, the Gunners are solely focused on killing whoever is holed up in that small house with the attached garage, and it is unlikely that they are sparing the woods much consideration. Gunners, much like the Brotherhood, are incredibly single-minded.

The woods give way to wasteland plain much too soon for Deacon’s liking. For a moment, he debates on how to get from the north side of the Estates to the west side, near the house. He could keep with his wide circle approach and hope that the dusty, brown leather of his bomber jacket keeps him somewhat camouflaged from the Gunner’s spotters. Or he could dart in close to one of the houses and skirt their backyards, keeping to the cover of their dilapidated frames. 

He decides to chance to move in closer. That way at least, he’ll be able to hear if the Gunners manage to spot him and thus disappear with his stealth boy. He’d rather not waste it before he manages to throw himself into the fray, but he’d also rather not die. Pick your battles and all that.

Deacon moves in behind a house that still has an intact fence and some patio furniture that has seen better days. Nay, better centuries. It always strikes him as kind of sad scenes like this: a slowly collapsing home that is futilely waiting for its people to return. He shakes off the melancholy of the moment and darts between the houses. The next house is the one he’s looking for, evidenced by the few dead Gunners littering the backyard that have had the unfortunate luck to have found a landmine. 

Carefully, Deacon starts across to the house, watching the scrub grass for any yellow lights. He spots a few active landmines and slowly picks his way around them. The back door of the house is long of its hinges, but one of the house’s defenders has propped it sideways along the frame to help slow any Gunners that managed to make it past the landmines. 

Deacon presses himself against the frame, careful to stay out of sight least a trigger happy defender mistakes him for a Gunner. He leans his head just inside the frame, checking the ground floor for any signs of the people within. He spots two: a young woman firing shots out of the front door and a man in a small kitchen nook using the stove as cover as he fires at the Gunners.

Their clothing is simple, jeans and a coat; regular Waster gear, but the thing that makes it clear they are a team are their hats and their rifles. Their hats are leather and worn, with tattered edges and a few spots where the leather is smooth from constant use. They are wide brimmed to keep the sun off their faces and curved to keep the rain off their backs. Their rifles are laser, but heavily modified to keep multiple charges primed in their barrels to be released at the most opportune time. 

Minutemen. How fortunate. They might actually survive this idiocy.

“Hey there,” Deacon calls, head tucked well back from the door’s opening. “Don’t shoot. Just want a minute of your time.”

“Show yourself,” the woman calls. “And I swear if you’re a Gunner I’ll put you down.”

Deacon sticks his hands beyond the edge of the door frame to show he’s not currently holding any weapons. “Not a Gunner,” he says and slowly moves into the doorway. “Just a friendly neighbourhood merc. Thought I might be able to help.”

The woman gives a sharp laugh. He can see she’s got a laser wound on her right leg that probably hurts like a sonuvabitch and she has a blue armband with a single white bar. 

“Oh yeah, just what we needed. More merc assholes.”

“Hey, I want to kill Gunners, you want to kill Gunners. Let’s kill Gunners together. You lead this rag-tag group of Minutemen?” 

She gives him a long appraising look, not even flinching when gunfire peppers the floor near the door. Then, she turns and bellows up the stairs. “Captain! Got a moment?”

There a shuffling sound from the second floor and then a barrage of gun and laser fire hits the outside of the house. Deacon ducks bit back behind the frame, making sure to keep his hands visible. 

“Not the best time, Davis,” a male voice calls back a moment after Deacon hears a laser rifle fire. 

“There’s a merc here who says he wants to help. I figured before I shoot him you might want to chat with him. Then, I can shoot him.”

“Aw, and here I thought we were getting along so well,” Deacon says, voice full of mock hurt.

“Jackson, take my place,” the Captain says and Deacon can hear heavy boots scoot across the floor upstairs. The Minuteman in the kitchen nook bolts up the stairs as the Captain comes down.

He’s a tall, broad-shouldered man with a heavy looking coat that moves with the stiffness of steel plates. _My, how…armoured you look,_ Deacon thinks. The Captain has a leather bandolier of fusion cells that is slung over one shoulder with a pair of cuffed, leather gloves. Perched atop his head is a hat not unlike the ones of the Minutemen around him, but one side is tacked up for long range shooting. His armband has two bars.

He gestures for Davis to take up position where Jackson had left and the Captain takes her place by the door. “Talk fast, merc,” the Captain says.

“You’re killing Gunners. I want to kill Gunners. Let’s kill Gunners together. Simple, right?”

“It’s pretty obvious that we could use the help, but the Minutemen don’t employ mercs.”

Deacon grins. “No need. Already getting paid, but there are too many of them for just me and my partner to take out. We work together and you get to claim fame for killing 20 Gunners yourself, and we live long enough to spend our caps. What’da think?”

The Captain shies away from the door as a few laser shots singe the wooden frame. “Where’s your partner?” he asks when the fire ceases.

Deacon makes a show of pulling back his bomber jacket’s sleeve to look at his non-existent watch. “He should be making himself known anytime now.”

The Captain raises one eyebrow in disbelief. Then the echoing _CRACK!_ of MacCready’s rifle drowns out all other sounds for a brief moment. 

“BOOM,” Deacon says with a laugh. “He’s attempting to take out the Gunners’ leader and they're likely going to be in disarray for a few minutes while they try and find where the gunfire is coming from. This would be the time to kill most of them. I'll take out the riflemen in the other house and you focus on the ones here.”

A sharp nod from the Captain is all the confirmation Deacon needs before he heads into the fray. 

In the center of Fairline Hill Estates, there is a dilapidated playground that was been fortified with sandbags. Most of the Gunners are clustered around this area. A couple long range riflemen are positioned in the house directly opposite where the Minutemen are holed up. This is Deacon’s immediate goal. Between MacCready and the Minutemen, they should be able to get a most of them before they start retreating to the houses to escape MacCready’s sights. 

Deacon skirts the edge of the houses, careful to keep to the backyards to ensure he doesn’t get clipped with a stray bullet or is seen before he needs to be. He checks between the houses, looking for the Gunner's leader. The echoing _CRACK!_ of MacCready’s rifle sounds again and Deacon sees a woman with a large laser rifle go down. Good. He’d rather not deal with that. Pulling back from the edge of the house and continuing along the backyards, Deacon can hear the shouts of the Gunners. They keep saying “She’s down! She’s down!” or “Sniper!” 

The Minutemen are taking advantage of the momentary confusion to take the majority of them out. 

When he reaches the back of the house the Gunners long range riflemen are stationed in, Deacon disappears under a stealth field. He slips in through the back door, pulling his plasma pistol out as he goes. They don’t have a guard posted to protect the house. Probably because they didn't expect any of the Minutemen to be able to leave the safety of their house across the Estates. Should've had a few landmines, though; he’s glad they don’t. 

As with all the houses in the Estates, the staircase that leads to the second floor is just to the right of the front door and opens right next to the upstairs windows. If he’s not extremely careful, the creaking of the old steps will give him away before he gets a chance to get much further up the stairs than the top of his head. Even with his stealth boy.

Deacon creeps across the bottom floor of the house and presses himself against the kitchen’s cabinetry near the front door. He’s listening to the sounds of the Gunners on the second floor, trying to gauge if there are more than just the two that are using the windows on the upper floor. He can only hear two distinct rifles being fired, so he’s fairly certain that there isn’t more of them than that. 

He carefully swings around the ornate railing and onto the first stair. No ominous creak greets his weight, so Deacon continues upward at a sedate pace; ever listening to the sounds of their rifles. There is one step, about halfway up, that squeaks underfoot. Immediately Deacon stops, his heart his hammering in his chest as it tries to keep pace with the demands adrenaline has placed on it. There is no shifting from the Gunners above, so it's possible they can’t hear anything besides the ringing sound of the rifles echoing in their ears. 

He crests the second floor and his head is right next to one of the Gunners. The man is kneeling with one leg nearly in the stairwell, focused solely out the window and beyond. Deacon moves up another stair, slow, eyes pinned to the first Gunner to make sure he doesn’t suddenly become interested in the house’s interior. The second Gunner is positioned much as the first, but there is an old dresser turned lengthwise between them and it’s blocking all but the Gunners' head and shoulders.

Deacon goes up one last step so that his torso has cleared the second floor and aims for the closest Gunner. Once he takes the shot, the other one will turn, even without seeing where he is, and likely fire near where Deacon is crouched. He has to be quick to take out the second one before he can pull the trigger. Deacon takes a steadying breath and fires.

The first Gunner goes down with a muffled cry and half his face dissolving under the corrosive goo of the plasma. The second Gunner whirls and Deacon fires two shots at his face as a precautionary measure and ducks down a couple stairs in case that Gunner manages to get off a shot before he dies. Deacon waits for a few beats before he pops back up. Both Gunners are down. He climbs the rest of the way up to the second floor and peers out the window.

MacCready and the Minutemen seem to have made short work of most of the Gunners in the playground, but Deacon can see that several are retreating to a nearby house and MacCready will have a hard time shooting them there. Deacon pulls back from the window and disengages his stealth boy to conserve its charge. None of the surviving Gunners have made a beeline for this house, so he dashes back down the stairs and out the back door. 

The house next door to the west is lacking Gunners as well. Deacon peers through its door and out the open garage door. There doesn’t seem to be any movement out on the playground. He re-engages his stealth boy and heads over to the next house down. As he makes it to the backyard, Deacon can hear the remaining Gunners speaking in the house. Their voices are low and urgent —they're fearful of MacCready’s impeccable aim and the Minutemen.

Only one seems to note that their riflemen in the house further down have gone quiet.

Deacon peers in the door. He can’t immediately see them, but he can still hear their voices. He steps into the house, slowly, wary of the creaking floors. He finds five of them in the house's old living room, crouching low to prevent someone from picking them off with a bullet through the busted windows. Two of them are badly injured. They are trying to find a way to escape without getting killed, but Deacon can’t let them leave. 

Gunners are notorious for holding grudges, for years, decades even. If this route is to stay safe, they have to die here and their death should serve as sufficient warning to any other Gunners that this area is off limits. He’ll need to make sure that HQ knows that someone from Dayton house will have to keep a watch on this area so another garrison of baddies doesn’t take up residence here again.

Deacon pulls his knife from its sheath and rushes the injured group. They don’t put up much resistance; long worn out from their fighting with the Minutemen. He goes for the stronger ones in the group first, ramming his knife into the soft spots between their armour and going for neck or head shots with his pistol. When they are all dead vDeacon makes sure they are before he turns his back on them, having learned _that_ lesson well— he disengages his stealth boy; there isn’t much of a charge left, not much more than a minute or two, but you never know when it might come in handy.

He puts his pistol and knife away and walks out of the house with his hands clearly raised so MacCready or the Minutemen don’t take it upon themselves to shoot him. By the time he makes it to the playground, the Minutemen are picking their way across the street to join him. Most of them are injured. A couple severely, but they must have stimpaks because no one is bleeding. He’s doubly glad the Minutemen were here if they hadn’t been, those injuries would likely be Deacon’s and he doesn’t fancy visiting Sun again anytime soon. 

Deacon waves a couple of times at the woods, hoping that in case MacCready hadn’t already got the idea, that he would be down to the Estates shortly.

The Captain moves toward Deacon, his laser rifle slung over his shoulder. He holds out his hand for Deacon to shake. He has a firm grip and pumps Deacon’s arm twice.

“Preston Garvey,” he says, “Thanks for your assistance. I’m not sure we would have made it out of there alive.”

“Rhett," Deacon replies. "My sniper partner is MacCready; he should be down shortly, and hey, you made sure that we got paid for this little boondoggle. Win. Win. Though, I gotta ask, how'd you end up here?”

Garvey gives an annoyed sigh. “We’re pretty sure someone is living in the old Milton General Hospital and have been getting reports of a group of Gunners raiding supply caravans to that place and further down to Quincy. We were tasked with locating their base of operations. All the intel we had suggested five or six. Not twenty. We were screwed the moment we engaged. They crawled out of the houses like ferals.”

Deacon wants to roll his eyes. The Railroad: the Commonwealth’s worst kept secret. How many times is he going to have to stress the need for discretion? Frankly, he’s starting to believe that the only reason The Railroad still operates in the Commonwealth is because The Institute can’t be bothered to completely destroy them. It’s not a cheery prospect.

“Well, my Minutemen friends, glad we could help. Feel free to scrounge for any fusion cells for your rifles. My partner and I are going to take everything that isn’t nailed down, but if you see something you like I’m sure we can haggle for it,” Deacon gives them a grin and Davis requests permission to shoot him. It's denied.

Deacon’s and MacCready’s packs are fit to burst and their pockets are overflowing with scrounged caps when they leave —after they’ve shaken the hands of the Minutemen and Garvey has thanked them, again. The evening is coming to a close by the time they get into Goodneighbour. Deacon is excited to have the chance to check out the assaultron in Kill or Be Killed. 

MacCready eyes the robot with some wary suspicion, but Deacon just cheerfully dumps their packs on the counter and proceeds to haggle with the assaultron, KL-E-0. He finds he likes her dry wit even if she does talk about murder a little more than he’s comfortable with. However, she is a robot designed specifically to kill people, so he won’t hold it against her.

KL-E-0 won’t take all of their bounty, but she does give a good price for some of their best finds. They end up with nearly 1500 caps for their trouble and MacCready is quite happy with Deacon’s haggling. The rest of the discarded weaponry they pack up and they take themselves over to The Rexford Hotel to rent a room for the night. It’s inadvisable to wander the streets of Boston after dark, especially if you don’t have someone who can see in the dark as your guide. 

MacCready wants to go to The Third Rail to celebrate their good fortune and Deacon agrees. He wants to know how that place is fairing since his last visit. A new door guard greets them upon entering: a dour looking ghoul in a nice suit. He calmly informs them that only small arms are allowed downstairs and only if they are holstered. All long arms must be stowed in one of the old lockers. MacCready hesitates, probably because he doubts the security of The Third Rail; he refused to leave his rifle in their room at The Rexford Hotel, but even Deacon couldn’t fault him that. 

The ghoul shows them the lockers and then the old paint bucket where a number of refurbished locks are sitting, complete with a single key in each. MacCready is still wary of just leaving his rifle and says something to this effect. The ghoul laughs, it's sort of burbling sound that reminds Deacon of some swamp monster from an old horror movie, and tells them that if Hancock ever caught anyone stealing from the gun lockers in the Third Rail they’d learn what it was like to bleed to death from a stab to the kidneys. 

Happily, there had been a demonstration last week.

Deacon is pretty sure that little factoid does not give MacCready a great deal of confidence. For his part, Deacon kind of wants to laugh, not so much at the murder part, but because of the deadpan delivery of the ghoul.

In the end, MacCready grabs a lock and stows his weapon. As a sign of good faith, Deacon stows his plasma pistol in the locker as well. He keeps his knife, though. Only a fool would wander around Goodneighbour completely unarmed. MacCready pops the key in his pocket and they head down the stairs together.

Like the rest of Goodneighbour, The Third Rail is far cheerier than the last time Deacon set foot in it. Even with the bullet holes still peppering the walls. New tables and chairs have been scrounged from someplace, but the bar looks ever the same. The most notable difference being: the stage. No longer a place to ogle flesh, but rather the talents of the dark-haired singer and the small band behind her. Wow, where did they even find working instruments? Deacon is impressed.

He's pretty sure he’s seen the singer before. Unfortunately, his terrible memory for faces is making itself known. 

“What’ll ‘ave, chaps?” Whitechapel Charlie asks as they hit the bar.

MacCready looks at Deacon. He shrugs.

“Beer, I suppose,” MacCready replies after a moment.

Charlie pulls out a couple of Gwinnett bottles that have been reused and cracks the tops. He keeps the bottlecaps. “15 caps.”

MacCready puts the money on the bar and Charlie sweeps them into a small hole with the other two caps. They can hear a faint clinking noise of bottlecaps hitting other bottlecaps. Then, they find an unoccupied table and settle in to watch the show. MacCready takes a long swallow of his beer and nearly spits it across the floor. Deacon laughs at the expression on his face and set his own beer aside. MacCready coughs once he manages to gulp the liquid down and stares at the bottle like it personally offended him.

“That was they nastiest fucking shit I have ever tasted and I have had to eat brain fungus to survive.”

Deacon winces a bit, because yeah, brain fungus is some awful stuff. MacCready turns in his chair, probably to give Whitechapel Charlie shit over the product, but Deacon is already out of his chair. He gives MacCready a _‘I’ll handle it’_ gesture and steps up to the bar.

“So you got anything that doesn’t taste like it’s been filtered through the skull cavity of a feral ghoul?”

Charlie's optics give Deacon a thorough once over. “Wot? Don’t like that freshly pissed taste?”

“Does anyone?”

“Look, we got what we got. You don’t like it? Piss off.”

Deacon leans on the bar, letting his sunglasses slid to the end of his nose. “Not even for the guy who killed the raider trying to kill you, in a shower of gooified entrails?”

Charlie stares at him for a long moment. “You’re lookin’ a bit different these days. That twat’s name was Tightrope, might want to remember that for…future transactions.”

“Will do. What’s your off-the-menu, menu look like.”

“Chems and some preserved spirits scrounged from across the ‘Wealth.”

“Got any whiskey?” Real whiskey would be a nice change from the paint-stripper that Vadim passes off as Bobrov’s Best.

Charlie spins around and unlocks a low cabinet behind him. He comes back with a bottle that has clearly seen better days and pours two glasses half-full of the amber liquid. Then he puts the bottle away and relocks the cabinet. 

“Normally, this would be 100 caps each, but since you did me solid I’ll give you both for 100.”

Deacon raises his eyebrows. A 100 caps are _a lot_ for two drinks. Even for a pair that are over two-hundred-years-old. But what the hell, he’s come this far, Deacon counts out a 100 caps. Charlie whisks them away and Deacon picks up his drinks. He’s never seen a glass this full of hard alcohol before, hopefully, it’s worth the price tag.

“You gotta name?” Charlie asks before Deacon leaves the bar.

“Sure, don’t we all? Maybe next time I’m through I’ll let you know what it is.” Deacon winks. He shoves his sunglasses back up with a wrist and heads back to MacCready.

He set the glasses down and resumes his seat. MacCready picks up one and eyes it suspiciously. 

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Whiskey. It cost me a half a months rent, so try and enjoy it.”

Deacon takes a sip and holy shit that is the best damn whiskey he’s ever had. By the look on MacCready’s face, it’s the best he’s ever had too. He’ll need to add this to the list of things from the Old-World he’s jealous of, along with music and literature: whiskey that doesn’t cause blindness. It’s a short list, there’s not a lot of things Deacon likes from the Old-World.

“That asshole robot gave you this?”

“Sure, if you think paying a 100 caps constitutes ‘gave me’.”

MacCready sputters. “What?!”

“Old Chuck there owed me a favour. I cashed in for some better drinks, even got a discount if you can believe it.”

“I thought you were fucking kidding about the price.”

Deacon laughs. “I wish.”

They watch the floor show for a good two hours before the band breaks sometime around midnight. They’ve talked little during this time, mostly just watching the performance. A host of old songs, some of which Deacon hasn’t heard in years. MacCready gets up once during the show to get them another round, though he absolutely refuses to pay the 100 caps that Deacon did for their _very fine_ whiskey. 

Deacon considers saying not to bother getting him another one -he doesn’t drink in large quantities (mostly because the Wastes leave a lot to be desired when it comes to alcohol, but also because his preferred method of coping is hiding and/or large amounts of murderous vengeance —we all have our crosses to bear.) and is already quite tipsy from his large whiskey. However, in the spirit of their awesome partnership, he’ll let MacCready buy him another drink. 

The merc comes back with something he calls a ‘Dirty Wastelander’. It’s pretty good, though its sweetness seems a little cloying at first after the whiskey Deacon’s just had. By the time the band breaks he’s definitely drunk, but not like _drunk_ drunk, so he’ll still be able to make a good time to Diamond City tomorrow. 

Without the distraction of the band, it's easier for them to talk. Deacon asks a few questions and MacCready just runs his mouth, ‘jaws’ as he put it. The kid wants to talk and Deacon lets him. Most people think he’s joking when he says he has one of those faces that people trust, but he’s really not. Okay, so maybe it’s not the face, since that changes, but there is something about The Lone Wanderer that puts people at ease and makes them want to talk about themselves. It’s the reason he’s a good spy, everyone tells him everything. 

He learns that MacCready’s pretty lady is actually his wife, or as close as one gets to that these days. Her name is Lucy and the way he lights up when he talks about her, Deacon is pretty sure a lighthouse could be powered with that expression. Lucy is from a small community up near the Old-World state of Ontario, not much left of it after a group of raiders destroyed it. That’s why they were headed back to the Capital Wasteland; Lucy wants their child to grow up someplace stable and safe. The Capital may have Brotherhood soldiers everywhere, but there aren’t any raiders and very few super mutants. That sounds like paradise to Lucy and MacCready is content to give her what she wants.

It’s then that Deacon decides he’ll give the bulk of the caps they’ve made to MacCready. He'll keep the weapons they haven’t managed to sell and strip them down and sell the parts. They’re worth more than the whole anyways and there are the caps the Railroad will pay him for disposing of the Gunners. Won’t be as much as he currently has, but if MacCready and Lucy are ever going to make that trek successfully, they’ll need all the funds they can get.

He’ll have to talk MacCready into it first, though.

While MacCready moons over his girl, Deacon notes that at the bar, Whitechapel Charlie is having a hushed conversation with The Third Rail’s singer. One of Charlie’s optics is even focused on him. Deacon’s regretting coercing Charlie into giving him access to the back-shelf stores. How long will it be before Hancock hears he’s back in town? Amari? Not that he expects Amari to shoot him or anything, just that she’ll probably tell HQ he was in town and he can’t imagine that going over well.

The dark haired singer gives him a look over her shoulder as she heads back to the stage. It’s almost dismissive. Deacon’s glad for it. Hopefully, he stays under the radar. The band plays a few more sets before they call it quits for the night. By this time their beers don’t taste so bad, warm as they are, and it seems a shame to let the caps go to waste.

Deacon is slowly picking his way back to sober by the time MacCready and he leaves. It seems silly to stick around now that the band has stopped playing and Deacon imagines that only the most stalwart of drunks will stay in the bar now.

MacCready and he lurch up the stairs, half-staggering, half-laughing at the stumbles of the other. When they make it to the lockers upstairs, MacCready can’t remember which one is his, and Deacon cheerfully directs him to try whatever one strikes his fancy under the false insinuation that Deacon remembers which locker is theirs. He finds it incredibly amusing to watch MacCready get more and more frustrated and use more and more creative swears with each successively wrong locker. 

Finally, MacCready clues in that Deacon is not helping, in any sense of the word, and starts ignoring his suggestions. He finds the locker really quickly after that. Behind them, the door guard laughs his wet laugh.

Once they’ve retrieved their weapons, and MacCready has given him a hearty shove for being an asshole, they head out into the streets of Goodneighbour. Deacon doesn’t get much further than a couple of steps before a strong hand is wrapping around his arm and pulling him back toward The Third Rail. His hand goes to his knife, but a smoky purr stops him.

“Hey now, sugar, no need for that. I’m friendly. ‘Bout the friendliest thing you’ll find in this place.”

Deacon lets his hand drop. It’s the singer from the bar. He recognizes her smoky voice and now her face, too. She was there when Hancock set Vic a'swinging. She’s a bit more dolled up than the last time he saw her, but so is he. Well, at least he’s not covered in gooified entrails. That black dress is doing wonders for her ample curves.

“Really? I heard there’s a bleedin’ heart doctor in this town. Might have to fight her for that title.”

She laughs, low and smooth. “I think you might be a little thick, sugar. Maybe try for a compliment instead of a comparison, next time. Flattery will get you a lot of places.”

“How about a twofer? _‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date—_ ”

“Rhett!” MacCready interrupts, rounding the corner of the building. He’s suddenly noticed that Deacon wasn’t following.

The woman makes a noise of impatience. “Darlin’, do you mind? I’m tryin’ to seduce your friend here.”

“Oh, oops. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” MacCready says with a grin and wanders back toward The Hotel Rexford.

“Now, where were we? Ah, yes,” she takes Deacon’s hand and pulls his out of the recessed doorway of The Third Rail to a nearby alley. 

_The Alley_ , as it turns out —Deacon’s decides it needs a title, after all, it sees so many things. His brain is having a hard time catching up to what exactly is happening here, he thinks he probably needs to be getting back to the hotel. While it was fun to play this flirty game with this lovely women, he has a hangover to complain about and a green jewel in his future. One of these days he’ll get back to that neon heart, too. 

Wait, wasn’t there something about seduction? Oh.

He has this strange ability to attract strong women, usually with serious daddy issues: Amata, Sarah Lyons, Bekka. Did he look like a man who needed a woman to push him around? Or did he just take direction a little too well? Deacon pulls away from where the woman has settled her hands against his coat.

“Hey, I think there might be just a teeny misunderstanding here. Sometimes my mouth talks faster than I think, and I’ll be honest, not thinking too well right now. My problem is I like being the cleverest person in a room and that usually comes off as me being a flirt, so maybe I gave you the wrong impression.”

She raises one delicate eyebrow. “And what impression might that be?”

“That I’m totally okay with fucking you in this alleyway.”

She laughs again. It’s a lovely sound. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you, sugar? Normally, we would be back at my room at the Rex already, but you did sweet talk Charlie into giving you his top-shelf and I wanted to make sure you were still…capable.” She draws a finger along the seam of his zipper, Deacon sucks in a sharp gasp. “I wasn’t planning on fucking you here if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Deacon catches her wrists. “Look, I saw you talking with Charlie and combined with that comment about the really nice whiskey that robot sold me, I’m going to assume he told you who I was. Thing is, not really comfortable with getting sexual favours for a good deed. Leaves this nasty taste in my mouth. You’re lovely and absolutely to die for in that dress, but if you’ve pulled me into this alleyway as some sort of ‘thank you’, I'll have to politely decline.”

She stares at him for a long time, her face a strange mix of fondness and disbelief. He lets go of her and she brings one hand up to tuck her hair behind one ear. It’s a gesture that speaks of vulnerability and frustration. She sighs.

“Hancock said you would, decline that is. He told me you never even took payment for helping with the militia. You Railroad types are a little too good for this world, you know? I want to and you look like you need out of your head space, sugar. Is it too much to ask for this pretty little synth to return a favour?” She says this with little fanfare but he knows what admitting it cost her, what it could cost her if the information fell into the wrong hands. 

Deacon brushes a couple of fingers along her cheek. “No, but not like that. You know, if really want to stroke my ego you could write a song about me. I love music. What’s more, I’d love to know that music didn’t die with the Old-World. It’s too fine a thing for them to keep the monopoly on. Besides, they hardly deserve it after what they did to the world.”

She makes a show of tapping her fingers on her lips. “I can’t write a song about a stranger, sugar.”

“Sure you could! The speculation would be half the fun.”

“You deserve more than that.”

Deacon shrugs. “And if wishes were caps…”

“We’d all be rich.” She wraps her arm around his and he automatically crooks his arm to cradle hers. She starts to lead him out of The Alley. “I saw the way you were talking with your friend. People do that a lot with you, don’t they? Spill their lives all over your lap for your perusal. Who do you tell your life to, I wonder.”

“I have this teddy bear-”

“Tell it to me.” 

Deacon starts to laugh, but he catches sight of her face. Deadly serious, earnest, and open. In that moment, he wants to. He hasn’t had anyone to talk to since Amata died. 

They used to sit with their backs pressed to either side of the vault door, Pipboys linked through the vault’s emergency radio system and talk for hours. They talked about the Wastes, about the vault, about James, and the Brotherhood, about everything. When he gave her the modified holotape to keep safe for him, it was the first time he’d seen her in months. 

“That’s not a good idea,” he says, shaking off the memory. 

“Why? Because we’re strangers? Let’s fix that, shall we? I’m Magnolia.” She gestures for him to introduce himself.

“Deacon.”

Her mouth curls into a smirk. “We both know that The Railroad uses codenames for its members and I’ll assume that ‘Rhett’ isn’t your real name either. That’s okay, sugar. By the end of the night, you’ll tell me.”

“You’re pretty confident I’ll crack, but I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint.”

The neon lights of The Rexford Hotel wash the street in a red glow as they cross to the doors.

“It’s not about cracking; that makes it sound like a weakness. It’s not a weakness to need a little human comfort. Even if it’s only a tender heart to listen to your woes. You want a song, don’t you, sugar? Let me do you justice.”

Deacon holds open the door for Magnolia. “Who’s doing who the favour here?”

“Me. If you’d let me, you big lug.” She tucks her arm around his again and gives a lazy wave to Clair behind the front desk.

They walk up the stairs in silence, not trusting the quiet of the hotel to keep their discussion private. Deacon fully intends to walk Magnolia to her door and join MacCready in their room. She slips a key out of the pocket of the light coat she is wearing to fend off the April evening's chill and unlocks her room door. She pulls him into her room without so much as a word and Deacon doesn’t have it in him to fight. 

Maybe he won’t tell her everything, especially not tonight, but there are a few things he could stand to get off his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to anyone who actually speaks French if I flubbed up ‘elle voit la vie en rose’ grammatically or contextually. 
> 
> In Goodneighbour, Deacon recites the first few lines of _Sonnet 18_ , by Shakespeare.
> 
> This is not my favourite part, but it is important for things further down the line. Next part will be more fun, though writing a swearing MacCready was very entertaining.


	5. Tell your friends, you dead bastard. We'll be here all week.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Cowards die many times before their deaths;_   
>  _the valiant never taste of death but once._   
>  _Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,_   
>  _it seems to me most strange that men should fear;_   
>  _seeing that death, a necessary end,_   
>  _will come when it will come._
> 
> _-Julius Caesar (2.2.34)_

It took the entire hour long walk back to Diamond City for Deacon to make his case. 

The case being that MacCready needs to take the majority of their looted/haggled caps, while Deacon takes the money for the job and the rest of the scrounged weapons. He makes sure to stress that it would ultimately be equal (and it sort of will be), only Deacon’s caps will come together in a trickle rather than a windfall. MacCready and Lucy aren't going to spend much longer in the Jewel anyways, and they need caps now if they are going to continue south. Deacon, on the other hand, doesn’t need a mass of caps right now. He has enough to keep him well stocked in Diamond City. 

Ultimately, Deacon has to go for MacCready’s soft spot: Lucy. A young, pregnant woman wandering through five states to get to the Capital Wasteland; it was going to be difficult. That journey is hard on even the most seasoned of travellers, let alone one that is trying to support another life. More caps meant better accommodations in towns, food, clean water, medicine. Finally, MacCready breaks.

“Okay! _Okay._ Just stop fucking talking about it. You’re making me nervous about travelling.”

“Hey, you gotta be prepared. We’ve both made that journey, and you know it’s not easy.”

MacCready tugs on the bill of his hat. “Yeah, I do. Lucy was doing really great until a couple of weeks ago. Now she’s tired and sick all the time. I don’t know what to do other than make camp more often. The Capital is a long fucking way away and we’ve already come so far.” He sighs. “Sometimes, I think we should just stay in the Commonwealth, but Lucy keeps talking me out of it.”

“The lady wants what she wants. You’ve gotta have some family there or something, right? In between all those Brotherhood bastards.”

“Yeah. A few kids I grew up with are in a place called Big Town. Pretty sizable community these days, lots of traders from Rivet City hit it up. Would be nice to see them again, push ‘em around a little, ya know: for old times sake.”

Deacon laughs. “I knew it. You were a bully as a kid. Scrawny little thing like you pushin’ everyone else around. Probably had them all quakin’ in their boots.”

“That’s about the half of it. Though I _was_ Mayor, so it was semi-legitimate bullying.”

“Are you tellin’ me that a community of little kids didn’t just run around screaming at one another in a horrible state of anarchy, but that you were actually _organized_ enough to have a mayor?” Deacon lets a healthy dose of skepticism creep into his tone. It’s not hard, it's pretty much the same reaction he had all those years ago.

“Hey, if I’m lyin’ I’m fuckin’ dyin’. Though there was still a lot of the screaming at one another, but we were definitely organized. Probably more so than a lot of fucking adults, that’s for damn sure.”

“I think I’ll reserve judgment until I see it working first hand.” 

MacCready snorts. “That’s exactly what _he_ said too. I remember being pretty un-fucking-impressed at the time, but I get it now. Adults don’t like it when people figure out other ways of doing things. Especially when kids do it.”

“Yeah, kinda flies in the face of the idea that they’ve got it all figured out.”

“Yep. It’s why I don’t like livin’ in grown up towns. They don’t take kindly to suggestions.”

“Then you aren’t going to want to stay in Diamond City. They’re the Commonwealth's capital of ‘Don’t Take Kindly to Suggestions’.”

“Oh, we won’t. Probably leave tomorrow or the next day. Lucy is always antsy to be on our way and now that we’ve got caps we can blow this fuckin’ popsicle stand.”

Up ahead, Deacon spots the markers for Diamond City and they fall into an easy silence. Part of Deacon is kind of sad MacCready is leaving -he likes the kid (even though he still swears too much), but it’s better that he does. MacCready may have been only a kid when he met The Lone Wanderer, but he’s got sharp eyes and a quick mind and it’s easier to pretend to be someone else when you don’t have a to fool someone who used to know you.

When they get inside the gates, MacCready beats feet back to the Dugout Inn after Deacon gives him a playful shove and tells him to get out of his face. MacCready wanted to go the moment they entered the outer courtyard, but the kid does have some degree of manners. Shocking, considering the way he grew up. 

Deacon, for his part, kind of wants to head over to see Nick and tell him about his adventure with The Minutemen and Gunners, but seeing as how they aren’t exactly friends anymore, he quashes that notion. And he doesn’t want to head straight to the Dugout Inn. He’s still feeling wrung out from his conversation with Magnolia (Commonwealth subjects only, Deacon’s not about to start talking about the Capital Wasteland with _anyone_ ) and facing Vadim this early in the morning is not a welcome prospect. 

Instead, he wanders into the market. Doctor Sun is busy dealing with Ann Codman and Deacon sits on the edge of the bench next to the Mega Surgery Center to listen to the two exchange cutting remarks. It’s quite amusing. Sun doesn’t care if you’re a haughty Upper-stander or a travelling drifter, he treats everyone with the same level of acerbic disdain. Deacon leaves the bench before she concludes her business because he knows she’ll have a remark for him too if she spots him listening. 

He stops to chat with Solomon at Chem-I-Care (who is always trying to sell him a ‘prescription’ even though Deacon declines every time) because some of the town’s best gossip comes from the people who shop there. Deacon usually buys his Rad-X and Rad-Away here as an incentive for Solomon to talk with him. Not all that much going on that Deacon didn’t already know, but he spends a few caps anyways, to maintain the relationship.

Myrna gives him a dirty look as he passes by and Deacon smiles, wide and bright. She huffs and turns away, like a great bird ruffling its feathers.

He notes, not for the first time, that the market is strangely lopsided. Considering the central trading location of the city, it seems odd not to have a dedicated weapon’s merchant. There’s a spot right between Myrna and Moe Cronin where a shop could be set up. He’s already mentioned this once to HQ and he hopes they’ll find a sympathetic weapon’s merchant that wants to move to Diamond City. That would be the ideal permanent agent.

He stops to have a friendly argument with Moe about baseball. He finds it endlessly amusing that the rules have been so skewed, and not only skewed but redefined with such a brutal bent. However, it’s not hard to understand why Wastelanders believe that the Old-World participated in such a sport considering what they did to the world, and the war before that, that they seemed so fond of. 

What most Wasters don’t understand is the veneer of civility and gentility that Old-Worlders so desperately tried to maintain.

After he’s sufficiently riled up Moe, Deacon says his goodbye. He’s pretty sure Moe doesn’t take his ribbing personally, but he’s so bent on making baseball a more exciting sport than it actually was, that Deacon can’t help poking holes in his theories.

He won’t go and see Charlie today, down in Fallon’s Basement. The man loves to jaw -Deacon has decided this is his new favourite word- and subsequently will avoid work to do so. For all the caps that Deacon has and will likely spend there, Becky doesn’t like it when Deacon comes in because she knows her husband’s work day will shot. 

Deacon also had his hair trimmed last week, so no reason to jaw with John. Not that the man really needs an excuse to chat, Deacon could probably settle himself against one of the shop's pillars and John would chatter way while he cuts someone else’s hair. However, Deacon kind of likes sitting in the barber’s chair and listening to John fill him in on all the Upper-Stands gossip in one sitting. Just wouldn’t be the same to get it piece meal. 

Ultimately, he settles himself at the Power Noodles bar. 

Deacon’s not particularly hungry, he had a few pieces of dried brahmin meat on the way back from Goodneighbour and is still somewhat hungover, but this is a good place to sit and listen to the ebb and flow of the market. Plus, there won’t be a lot of real customers until lunch time, so he won’t be taking a seat from anyone who is looking for a meal. Takahashi still asks him his gibberish, though. 

Okay, so it’s not _gibberish_. Deacon’s pretty sure it’s Japanese the robot speaks and considering his duty as a food vendor he can guess what the robot is saying. It would be more fun if Tak could speak more than just the one line in Japanese, then you could really hold a conversation instead of just pretending to. He wonders if people around here would be okay with him performing robot surgery on their noodle vendor to fix his vocal loop.

Maybe he should wait until he has a better reputation in the city before he goes around messing with their stuff. 

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

“Hey, Takahashi. How’s things?”

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

“No shit? Then what? Tell me those assholes got what was comin’ to them.”

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

“Whoa. Right on my protectron friend. You tell ‘em.”

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

“Naw, I’m good. Thanks for askin’, though.”

With that negative, Takahashi trundles off to another section of the bar to ask his one-liner elsewhere. Deacon props his chin on one hand and stares off into space, just listening to the sounds of the morning market. It’s soothing. With the hum of the generator in the background and the din of conversation just above it: reminds him of the vault. Now if there was only a giant metal ceiling this really would feel like home.

A body slides into the seat next to Deacon’s. He gets a whiff of radiation dust from the settling of their clothing -they’ve recently travelled outside the Walls, and under that is fresh cigarette smoke, burnt gun power, and the unique scent of synthetic skin. Deacon smiles. _Nick._

“So, I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout fixin’ ole’ Tak here. You think full paragraphs is too much for Diamond City?”

“Kinda like the gibberish Takahashi speaks,” Nick says as settles his elbows on the counter.

Deacon pivots his face on his hand to look at Nick. “Oh, I’d keep the Japanese bit, that’s the best part. Just let him get outta that loop. Must be annoying only being able to say that one sentence over and over. Maybe he’s a world-class intellectual and we have no idea.”

“Maybe. Maybe he’s just a humble cook.” Nick grins and shakes his head. “This how you spend your free time, kid? Wonderin’ about the fates of the town’s various robots?”

Kid. Always kid. Never Rhett. Never Deacon. Just kid. 

“I don’t wonder. I’ve got it all figured out.” Deacon starts ticking the robots off on his fingers. “Fix Takahashi so he has full vocabulary range. Brain Wellingham before he decides that slicing choice brahmin steaks is not as fun as slicing up people. Dismember Percy, but only his buzz saw and flamer arms, he can keep his pincer. Ditto for Edna; she’s so nice she probably wouldn’t even mind. Boost the playback volume on the eyebots so this place is really rockin’ during the day. Lastly, try and get back into the good graces of the city’s synthetic detective.”

Nick starts laughing. “You got some kind of grudge against Mr. Handy’s, kid.”

“Trust me, Mr. Handy’s, and their female counterparts are not to be trusted. One tiny quirk in their programming and they’ll start slicing into people. Just you wait, it won’t be so funny when the rebellion begins.”

“Can’t you just reprogram them, like ole’ Tak?”

Deacon shrugs. “Sure, if you want to wipe their personality module and have a mindless husk. That’s not _creepy_ , or anything. The problem lies with General Atomic’s core programming; pretty sure they were just guessin’ their way through most of it. Give me a RobCo robot any day of the week. Old Robert House knew how to program his robots.”

Nick eyes Deacon with a speculative look. “Sound pretty knowledgeable ‘bout the subject.”

“Hey, I wasn’t always a charmin’ merc, Nick.” 

Oddly, Nick doesn’t rise to the bait. He looks past Deacon, to some point beyond his shoulder.

“Could you reprogram me?” 

Deacon frowns. “…Sure. By why would I want to? Or, better yet, why would _you_ want me to? Nothin’ wrong with you. Though, I would like to pick you apart and see what makes you tick, Nick. Pulled apart my fair share of bots that have your looks, but I suspect you’re light-years ahead of them.”

“Should I fear goin’ to bed at night, kid?”

“You don’t sleep, so I wouldn’t worry. Besides, my curiosity is probably on par with the kind of curiosity a doctor must feel when they have a ghoul as a patient. They probably would like to see first hand the ways radiation has forced the human body to adapt, but it’s not like they go around slicing into their patients. Ya know, unless they need surgery. Then it’s probably like Christmas.”

“Never thought much about it, but I suppose that makes sense.”

“If I were a doctor like my old man, I’d probably be more interested in ghouls. As it is, I find robots infinitely more interesting. But hey, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”

Nick laughs again and Deacon grins. He likes making Nick laugh. 

“But really, let’s talk about you, Nick. Why did you ask me if I could reprogram you?”

Nick gives him a long look. “Tell ya what, kid, you tell me what your _business_ is in town, and I’ll let you in on this.”

Deacon gives a rueful laugh. “I guess I deserved that. As much as my curiosity is now peaked, Mr. Valentine, I’m afraid I’ll have to, once again, decline to abate yours.”

“That’s a hell of a secret you’ve got, kid. Not sure if I’m impressed that you’re so doggedly keeping it, or offended that you don’t trust me with it.”

“A bit of both is probably best.” 

Deacon isn’t kidding himself that Nick won’t find out. Either he’ll figure it out on his own, or Deacon will spill it out of necessity. Until that moment arrives, however, mum’s the word. 

Nick makes a noise somewhere between agreement and frustration. “Well, take care of Takahashi if you decide to start poking around in his insides. He’s the only robot I can tolerate in this place.” He stands.

“Will do.”

“See ya around, kid.”

“Most definitely.”

Deacon watches Nick pick his way through the market and wonders why he stopped by. They haven’t been on _unfriendly_ terms, exactly, but Nick doesn’t usually talk to Deacon unless he needs something. It’s odd, but not unwelcome. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s just one of those things that happen when you think of someone and suddenly they appear like they were called there by your thoughts. 

That reprogramming thing is a somewhat worrisome, though. 

Nick stops to chat with one of the DCS guards. He’s pretty sure it’s Danny Sullivan, kind of hard to tell with the helmet, though. Danny’s a little shorter than Tom (Tom Kirk, Deacon learned some time ago. He checked up on the guy who is so obviously sweet on Ellie -he seems like a stand-up guy, but Deacon’s watching him), and they’re usually the two that Nick freely chats with. 

He turns back to Takahashi. The robot is standing in the middle of the bar, still. There is some soup gently simmering on the large hot plate that serves as the noodle bar’s kitchen; it’ll be ready for the lunch rush. 

“So Tak, how do you feel about a full vocabulary range?”

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

“That’s what I thought. Stay you, Takahashi. Stay you.”

\- - - - -

MacCready and Lucy leave Diamond City two days later. Deacon walks them out of the city and to Sammy Swatter. MacCready shows Lucy that for luck, it’s Diamond City tradition to pat the statue on his shoulder before starting out on a journey. Deacon watches their interactions with a faint smile, the way he has for the last couple of days. They’re so adorable it’s almost giving him a cavity. 

Speaking of which…

Deacon hands over a Vault-Tec lunch box that he put a couple of things in for the young couple. MacCready takes it with an eyebrow raised and Lucy smiles. Deacon stresses that they aren’t to open it until they make camp tonight. Then they’re to use it every day. MacCready reluctantly agrees and Lucy promises to hold him to it. He doubts MacCready will like it, but hopefully, it’ll save them both a lot of pain in the future. 

They say their goodbyes and Deacon heads back into the city as they start to walk away. He doesn’t want to watch them go, but he made the point to say goodbye. He’s lost enough people without having that chance. 

As the end of April rolls around, Deacon makes his report in full about the Gunners. He considered doing it earlier, but the one sentence note he’d left on Amari’s door in Goodneighbour was enough to summarize the situation and ensure compensation. He doesn’t want to burn his dead drop with too much traffic. He embellishes the tale in true Deacon fashion, least they think he’s gone all soft and is above bullshitting them on things that don’t particularly matter. Besides, it’s The Minutemen he really sung the praises of and it's not like Garvey is around to contradict his statements. 

However, he does add a serious line about better secrecy in all operations. When a rather obtuse organization like The Minutemen happen to know that there is a super-secret organization using a building, even if they don’t know the specifics, it's clear that you need to reprioritize _**COVERT**_ operations.

Maybe the capitals, italicizing, bolding, and underlining is a tad over the top, but short of marching down to the Switchboard and shouting at them, there really isn’t much else he can do.

May brings warmer daytime temperatures, though the nights are still too cold to travel outside of Diamond City without a coat, so he hasn’t completely retired his bomber jacket. Charlie has worked his magic, though, and a crafted a classy suit vest that buttons high for his new summer duds. It has re-enforced seams and overlapping panels of thin steel near his heart and lungs and lighter weight hardened-leather around the sides and back. Paired with a long sleeve button down that Becky insisted upon, he’s probably the classiest Lower-fielder in Diamond City.

Charlie apparently was going to use light-blue fabric, but ultimately settled on navy blue to better hide any blood stains. It's so nice that he’s taken Deacon’s career into account. Paired with the brass buttons, it is easily the best 500 caps he’s ever spent. The first time he wears it, Vadim asks him if he’s running for Mayor. Deacon laughs.

Piper rags on him for his Upper-stander attire and Deacon tells her she’s just jealous that Charlie likes him better than her. She’s been saving for ages to buy the red leather trench coat currently in Fallon’s Basement and though Becky refuses to sell it to anyone else, she also refuses to budge on the price. Charlie is either unwilling or unable to talk Becky into a slightly lower price for Diamond City’s most notorious snoop.

It’s not until about half way through May, that Deacon gets the opportunity to put Charlie’s clever design to the test. 

The Dugout Inn is rocking a full bar and Deacon is entertaining a couple of caravaners up from Quincy. They have recently passed through University Point and he’s making sure to pump them for all the information he can get about that town. Deacon's been getting the feeling that HQ is keeping things from him. It’s not anything specific, but his correspondence from Desdemona is seeming stilted and strange. Sly Nick gives him nothing about current operations, simply request information on Diamond City. However, Deacon can read between the lines; something is going on. With the word from the caravaners about the increased tensions in University Point -there’s been some pretty violent ‘protests’ about synths- he’s worried something has happened to Kilo house.

He’s tried probing for information in the last couple of monthly updates, but Deacon’s received no definitive answers in return. It’s frustrating him. They expect him to be a spy and yet they are keeping him out of the loop. Maybe he’s still on probation with the whole ‘traitor’ thing, but at this point, even P.A.M. must be labeling him in the clear, right? It’s been _eight_ months. 

Piper is in the corner table having a good, long chat with Scarlett, much to the annoyance of some of the customers. Ellie was in earlier with Tom, but they both left about an hour ago, same with the Fallones. Moe and Solomon are drinking and talking -shouting really. Their ruckus is getting slightly out of hand and Moe is about two shots away from challenging everyone in the bar to an arm wrestling match. 

It’s sometime around midnight and Deacon’s just ordered a fresh round of drinks for his table when a kid stumbles into the bar. 

Deacon’s eyes flick toward the door every time someone enters or exits; he keeps track of everyone who comes and goes. The kid doesn’t seem like anything special, maybe a bit young to be in a bar -sixteen or seventeen, but it’s the Wastes; unless you’re too short to climb on a bar stool you’re welcome in any drinking establishment. Whether or not you’ll actually get alcohol depends on the bartender. 

One of the caravaners (Deacon thinks his name is Greg? Or maybe Gary? Jerry? whatever -he’s been referring to the man as ‘Whiskey Bass’ in his head all night) is telling a pretty good story about a run in with some Gunners he had outside of Quincy and how the Minutemen came to his aid, but Deacon is only listening with half an ear. The kid has his attention. It’s clear he’s looking for someone in this mess of people. 

A drunken resident stumbles into the kid at the door. He mutters an apology as he heads out into the exit corridor and Deacon doesn’t miss the way the kid winces in pain and holds his side. He looks closer and sees a slightly darker patch on his coat that is indicative of blood. He suddenly knows that this kid is looking for him. Deacon just _knows_ it; the way The Wanderer just _knew_ when someone needed help only he could offer.

Deacon stands. He makes a few excuses that are only half listened to because Whiskey Bass is in good and deep in his story. Deacon gestures for a resident eagerly listening at their shoulders to take his chair and she gladly accepts. Suddenly, it's as if he was never at the table and that’s exactly how he wants it. Deacon stumbles over to the door in a parody of drunkenness and trips over the couch near the Port-A-Diner. He spills a handful of caps on the floor by the kid’s feet and laughs as he crouches to pick them back up. 

Without looking at the kid he asks in a low voice, “Do you know who the President of the United States is?”

He hears a sigh of relief. “John Henry Eden,” the kid whispers back.

Deacon collects his caps and stands. He gestures for the kid to follow him and he weaves through the crowd to the back rooms. Currently, both Vadim and Yefim are distracted by Scarlett and Piper -there’s some sort of heated discussion taking place, and no one notices Deacon lead the kid to room #3.

He directs the kid to sit in the room’s only chair as he closes the door. Then, Deacon grabs a stimpak from his stash.

“Let me have a look at that,” Deacon says and the kid gingerly pulls back his coat. The t-shirt underneath is quite red with blood and Deacon frowns. 

It looks like a bullet grazed him and it probably wouldn’t have been too bad if it had been treated right away, but the kid’s lost a fair bit of blood between the time the shot took place and now, and he’s looking a little pale. Deacon injects the stimpak and then roots around for some water and dried meat. The kid takes it gratefully.

“There’s no time to waste,” the kid says as he quickly eats. “High Rise sent me. He said you were the closest agent. We have to get back to him.”

Deacon’s guts clench. “Where?”

“East of here. In the courtyard outside Layton Towers.”

Deacon starts buckling all his gear on, leg guards, tool belt, plasma pistol, knife. “That’s a long way from Ticon. Where the hell were you goin’?”

“Another safe house for transfer outside of the Commonwealth. Look, I don’t know much. This was my first run as an agent. We were attacked by Gunners and then some super mutants. Right now they're killing each other, but I don’t know how long that’ll last,” the kid says in a hurried rush. “We have to get back. High Rise just said to come and get ‘Deacon’ -I’m assuming that’s you.”

“Yep,” Deacon says as he shoves stimpaks and plasma cells in his belt, then he hooks a stealth boy on. He’s only got one more left after this one and he’ll have to visit Goodneighbour soon to see if he can purchase some more.

He can usually get about three uses out of a stealth boy if he recharges them with a few fusion cells. After that, they won’t hold a charge for more than a few seconds. He keeps thinking that if he had more time and resources he might be able to make a permanently rechargeable one, but he doesn’t have the luxury of a proper workshop here, nor is he ever stationed long enough at the Switchboard to really make a go of it.

“Gunners and muties? Man, you guys really made some friends tonight. One package?”

“Yeah. Just the one, she a fighter, though. Not sure we would have gotten away from the Gunners if she hadn’t grabbed a gun.”

Deacon swings on his bomber jacket. Sounds like he’ll need all the protection he can get. “Well, technically you didn’t since you said they’re fighting the mutants.” 

He checks his tool belt one last time to make sure he’s grabbed everything he needs. Still feeling a little naked, though. Gunners and super mutants? He needs another gun. Looks like mum is no longer the word.

“HR okay? Still able to fight?”

“Uh, yeah. He was when I left, no tellin’ what it’s like now.”

“And the package?”

“Same.”

“Okay. I’m going to run on the assumption that they’re injured, simply because of the time it took you to get here and the time it’ll take for us to get back, in the dark. That means the only fresh gun you’ve got is me and that’s not enough, so I’m going to go get another one.”

The kid guzzles the last of the water and sets the can down on the floor. He makes to get up, but Deacon stills him.

“Wait here for two minutes, okay? It’s best if were not seen leaving together with me in my kit. I’m going to talk to a friend. We’ll meet you at Sammy.” The kid gives Deacon a confused look. “The statue out in the entrance square?”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Deacon heads to the door and has his hand on the doorknob before he thinks to ask what the kid’s name is. He turns back. “Hey, what do you go by?”

“Drummer Boy.”

Deacon smirks. Pa rum pum-pum-pum. 

“Two minutes, Drummer. And whatever you do, don’t let the loud bartender stop you. Just keep walking. If he asks you about me, just say ‘Rhett was okay with it’.”

The kid nods and Deacon heads back out into the bar. Vadim catches sight of Deacon as he heads toward the exit and loudly asks what he’s doing with all his gear on at this time of night. Deacon shouts back, somewhat drunkenly, that he’s going stargazing out on the roof of the Precinct 8. Deacon’s just weird enough that this odd decision goes largely unquestioned by Vadim, indeed the bar as a whole, other than the exclamation that he’s crazy and a few murmured agreements.

Diamond City is almost stiflingly quiet next to the noise of the bar. Deacon jogs along the walkways, avoiding the market until he hits Third Street. Then, he lets the neon glow lead him to Valentine. At the door, he pounds it twice with his fist and waits for Nick open it. He always does. No matter the time of night, Nick will always open his door to anyone who knocks. 

After a moment the lock turns and the door opens about half a foot until Nick gets a good look at Deacon, then the door swings further open. 

“Kid?” Nick’s eyes quickly take in that Deacon is fully armed and armoured.

“Nick, I need some help. Specifically, the kind that involves shooting people. Up for a little midnight stroll through Boston?”

Deacon barely has the words, ‘I need some help,’ out before Nick is heading back to his desk to grab his gun from a drawer and is sliding his trench coat on. Deacon finishes his query in the entry of the agency as Nick dashes off a note for Ellie. She mustn’t be in, otherwise, she’d be at the door too.

Nick locks the door behind them and they head out onto the streets. 

“Where to?” 

“Layton Towers, a good friend of mine is in trouble.”

“That’s not too far from here.”

Deacon avoids the market again. Nick follows his lead.

“Yeah, but it’s pretty far from where he normally calls home and they’ve had the unfortunate luck to piss off both Gunners and muties in one night.”

“Shit.”

Deacon hums in agreement and they are quiet until they get to the gates. One of the DCS guards tells them to be careful out in the ruins and they both toss affirmatives over their shoulders. Deacon grabs Drummer Boy as they give Sammy a pat and start off toward the east. Drummer is pretty shocked to see Nick and he is careful to keep Deacon between them. 

The kid probably had a few runs in with Gen 2’s and is a little uncomfortable to have one around that’s not shooting at him. Nick gives Drummer a quick once over and slides a questioning look at Deacon. He shakes his head and makes a twirly gesture at their surroundings. _‘Not here.’_ That seems to satisfy Nick for now and they continue on in silence.

As they exit the area around Diamond City and head into the ruins proper, Nick takes the lead. Drummer starts to protest, but Deacon tells him that they know where Layton Towers is and Nick can see in the dark. They’ll get there faster if Nick leads, they just have to make sure they stick close and follow his path. 

Layton Towers is about twenty minutes outside of Diamond City, give or take a few minutes (or hours) depending on how many raiders you run into. There was a recent settlement at the Towers, but sometime in March, it was wiped out. There are conflicting stories as to whether it was raiders or ferals because the few survivors that made it to Diamond City couldn’t seem to agree on the cause. It was probably both, it usually is. The only comfort in such a situation is that the raiders probably lost plenty of people to the ferals as well.

The Wilson Automatoys HQ is near Layton Towers and a new super mutant stronghold, which is probably where High Rise and crew picked up the mutie followers. If the Minutemen could stop arguing long enough to elect a new General, they could pull their shit together and start dealing with the influx of mutants that have begun taking over the downtown. Better yet, figure out where they’re coming from. Deacon would start with the vaults. 

It’s a straight shot from Diamond City to Layton Towers, as long as you don’t get sidetracked by raiders, ferals, or muties, and they make good time to the neighbourhood around Layton. In the distance, Deacon can hear gunfire and see the flashes of gunpowder and laser fire flickering through the darkness like lightning. Nick stops and crouches down behind a burnt out car. The mutants and Gunners are fighting up ahead, right in front of the main entrance to Layton Towers -the previous residents had constructed a junk wall around the inner courtyard to help in its defence. 

Nick turns to Drummer Boy, “How did you get out without being seen?”

The kid hesitates a moment before speaking. “There’s an alley just up head that leads to a side entrance.”

Nick leans around the car and scans their surrounds. “Yeah, I think I see it. Come on.”

He leads them around the car and down a little further before veering into an alleyway. Ahead, Deacon can see the metal skeleton of windowless frames. As they get closer, it becomes clear it's an old building’s lobby. To the left is a junk fence with a door that’s been wrenched off its frame. The lights from the Layton Towers' courtyard slips out the doorway and onto the sidewalk. The gunfire they heard earlier becomes sharp and clear on the air.

As they enter the courtyard, they can see a couple of Gunners detached from the main group that is fighting with High Rise and the young woman that must be their package. HR and the woman are in the lower courtyard taking cover next to the cinderblock wall as the Gunners try to get closer by using the stairs. Nick and Deacon each take one Gunner out as they rush through the junk door, Deacon’s plasma shot eating a hole straight through the ancient chain link fence that was between his pistol and its target. 

High Rise and the woman whip around at the sound of Nick’s gun -much quieter than before thank-you-very-much, but still louder than a regular handgun- rifles poised to start firing, but HR catches sight of Drummer Boy and relaxes. 

“Deacon?” he calls and Deacon gives a little wave.

“I’ll watch for more Gunners, you check on your friend,” Nick says from his side, then he hops up onto the cinderblock platform that leads to the Layton Towers doors. Deacon and Drummer head down into the lower courtyard. 

“Glory said you changed your face, man. Not bad. I kind of liked the old one, but this one’s okay too,” High Rise says as Deacon crouches next to him. Deacon can see he had been injured, fresh blood staining his leather armour, but the spent stimpaks on the ground speak to how he is now. “And you even brought the famed Nick Valentine. I’m flattered.”

Above them, Nick laughs lowly. “You should be. I don’t rush out of Diamond City in the middle of the night for just anyone.”

“I knew you liked me best, Nick. So HR, can we help you get to your destination? Or any place that isn't here?”

High Rise tilts his head upward at Nick and raises his eyebrow in question. _‘Can I talk freely?’_ The look asks. Deacon had debated this the entire trip out here. Was he still afraid that the Institute could use Nick against them? Yes. However, if they didn’t know that Nick knew…Deacon could work with that.

“He’s good HR, I can’t keep it from him now anyways. You listening, Nick? Cause you’re about to get everything you need to figure out my _business_ in town.”

High Rise grins and shakes his head. “Subtle, man. Real subtle. So, we were headed to a safehouse near the Harbourmaster Hotel, but we got jumped by Gunners while we were trying to avoid the Commons. I guess the destination doesn’t matter much now, cause J8 here doesn’t want to leave anymore.” He gestures to the young woman kneeling beside him with short black hair and clutching an assault rifle. She seems to be relatively unharmed, but the death grip on that gun might pop a joint or two if she doesn’t relax a bit. 

“Glory worked her magic, huh?”

“No. I haven’t seen her in ages. Not since shit started getting rough in University Point.”

“I want to help,” J8 interjects. “You people go through so much trouble for us and never get anything in return. And I don’t want a memory wipe; I don’t want to be someone else.”

“Nothin’ wrong with being a synth,” Nick says and J8 smiles, grateful for the encouragement. Boy, he put that together quick. Must have had his suspicions. 

“Oh, Glory is gonna love you, J8. Well, Ticon is pretty far from here, so, Goodneighbour?”

“Yeah,” High Rise nods. “The question now is: how to get out of this?”

“Diamond City is closer and the path is clear-” Nick starts, Deacon and High Rise cut him off simultaneously.

“ _No._ ”

Deacon elaborates. “No agent, tourist, or package is to step foot in Diamond City on…business. You’re supposed to avoid it completely, but that’s not really possible.”

“Yeah? And what about you?” It’s rhetorical and Deacon doesn’t answer, just lets Nick keep talking. “I expect a greater explanation later. For now, I suggest we go out the back.” Nick points to another door directly behind them. “These guys are too busy killin’ each other to notice us slippin’ out.”

With that consensus reached, the group heads for the rear exit of Layton Towers, heading left along the remains of a truck and trailer. Nick leads them straight down the small alley and back out onto the streets. They continue east along a small road parallel to the old freeway. The Gunners and mutant gunfire continue to pop behind them, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication that they are pursuing the group or that they even know they’ve left. 

They hurry along the street, trusting Nick to warn them of danger even as they scan the area around them. Deacon brings up the rear of the group, keeping one eye behind them for any mutants or Gunners who might get the idea to check the alleys for any escaping prey. When they reach the end of the street, Nick leads them to the left, past D.B. Technical High School, and then up another street before they head north again. 

If they had kept going straight, they would have hit the Combat Zone and they were not bloodied nor scraggly looking enough to get away with being raiders. Not to mention the real raiders would have shot Nick on sight. This path will put them smack dab in the middle of The Common, though. 

As they approach The Common, High Rise taps Nick on the shoulder. 

“Whoa, hey. Stop,” High Rise says.

“Yeah?”

Deacon moves up to better hear the conversation and he pulls J8 with him. If she’s going to be an agent, the best way to learn is through the fuck-ups of others. 

“Look, I know if you’re quiet you can avoid waking The Swan, but the whole reason we avoided The Common -and then got caught by the Gunners- was because there’s a bunch of Triggermen milling around the old Park Street subway station.”

Nick’s brow furrows. “ _Great._ I was just through here the other day.”

“They moved in quick. We had this route checked yesterday, and _bam!_ they’re here tonight.”

“Well, I’m open to suggestions.”

“We’ll come out on the west side,” Drummer points out. “It’s dark, they probably won’t see us.”

“If we keep veering north, we might as well go back to Ticon,” High Rise replies.

They could. Might be easier than trying to get to Goodneighbour. A lot of raiders along the Charles River, though.

Deacon can see Nick thinking. “Can you hear them?” he asks. 

“No. Still too far away.”

They decide to keep moving until they hit The Common proper. By then, Nick should be able to hear if the Triggermen are still milling about. It doesn’t take them long to reach the wooden sign propped up against the rusted, red truck that warns people against going into the Common. Deacon notes that the railsign marking danger has washed off the board. Tinker still hasn’t perfected his paint; he’ll have to mention it in his next report.

They stop next to the military tank on which some thoughtful Waster has painted ‘Swan’ on. He wonders how many people mistake that for someone naming this rusted vehicle instead of the Behemoth that lurks in the waters of The Common. 

“Anything?” Deacon asks. Nick’s razor sharp hearing should have had the Triggermen pegged by now. Nick shakes his head.

“Do you think they’ve gone into the subway?” High Rise asks. “Could we be that lucky?”

“This ain’t an exact science. It’s not like I can hear them breathin’ or anything, but I don’t hear voices. Could still have a guard posted, even if the bulk of ‘em have moved off.”

“If there is a guard, then you leave him to me,” Deacon says.

There’s a murmur of agreement and the group carries on. They take it slow down the street, staying as far back from the pond as possible. Loud noises are usually the only thing that wakes The Swan, but it has been known to watch for unwary travellers and attack when least suspected. Nick’s footsteps are quick and confident, though, and they reach the east side of The Common with little trouble. 

Now comes the most difficult part and the decision. They’ll have to cross partly along the eastern edge of The Common to get to the correct street to continue to Goodneighbour. Or they could continue straight and head to the bridge that’ll take them across the Charles River to the Ticonderoga. The group pauses as Deacon and HR have a quick discussion about it; they decide to continue to Goodneighbour. 

Amari always reacts better to a synth declining memory ‘reassignment’ -as she puts it, Deacon has less than kind words for it- when it’s the synth making the case themselves. (He likes Amari and believes her heart is in the right place, but he knows that when she looks at a synth she sees a robot, a sophisticated one, to be sure, but a machine nonetheless. He knows she wouldn’t so carelessly rewrite a human the way she does with the Gen 3s, nor be so proud about ‘completely scrubbing all old data’ if it were the memories and life of a human). She sometimes feels that The Railroad pressures a synth into declining the processes to have more hearty field agents, so she appreciates a synth advocating for themselves. 

Then, the three of them can head to Ticon tomorrow, in the relative safety of daylight, and start the process of getting J8 integrated with The Railroad.

With that settled, they start crossing along the eastern edge of The Common. They won’t have to pass directly in front of the Park Street Station, they just have to get to the Massachusetts’ State House. The street that runs down its side will lead them down to the Mass Fusion building (in order to avoid the super mutants that have the stronghold in the old hotel near Goodneighbour), but a bit of doubling back down another street, will bring them right to the neon lights of Goodneighbour. They will still be within clear view of the station as they make their approach to the State House, however, and any guards that might be posted.

As they make it to the far edge of the State House, Deacon gets the crawly sensation of being watched. He looks around, trying to spot movement in the dark, but sees nothing. Nick moves to a crouch behind a rusted out car sitting in the middle of the street and observes the Park Street Station. Deacon darts to his side to see if he can spot any movement.

“Oh shit,” Nick curses. 

In the low light cast by stations entrance, Deacon can see why Nick has been unable to hear the Triggermen. They aren’t underground. _They’re dead._ A small circle of bodies has been strewn on the street. It’s hard to see the exact details, but that crawly feeling is back tenfold. There was only one other time Deacon felt that. _Oh fuck._

“Courser,” he whispers, fear choking him. Deacon feels wobbly all of a sudden. Nick grabs his arm, steadying him.

High Rise’s head snaps up. “What?!” he hisses. Deacon hears his own fear reflected in that word.

“There’s a Courser here,” Deacon says, voice low and flat. He’s trying to push away the panic that’s threatening to drown him. 

“We’re already dead,” J8 whispers, voice tight with fear and Drummer’s eyes widen. 

“No. No dying,” Nick hisses, his voice is right next to Deacon’s ear. “Snap out of it, kid.” He gives Deacon a shake. “We still gotta chance. Think!”

Oh, he is. Several scenarios involving bloody death are currently flitting through his mind. All of them involve a fire-fight with a superior force that they can’t best and J8 being wiped and taken back to the Institute while The Swan feasts on their corpses. Well, Deacon’s and High Rise’s anyways -oh, he’s just had an idea.

Deacon looks at High Rise. “Do you have a grenade?”

HR shakes his head.

“I do,” J8 whispers and pulls out a frag. “I took it from a Gunner.”

“You perfect little looter, you,” Deacon murmurs, some of his wits returning, and takes the frag. “How about tape? Or even some string?” he asks the group as he pulls out one of his plasma cells. “Give me one of your fusion cells, HR.”

High Rise hands over one of his cells and Nick pulls out a roll of electrical tape from the pocket of his coat.

“My version of a stimpak,” he mumbles with a shrug and Deacon wants to laugh. Too noisy, though; he’s not sure where the Courser is, but Nick will probably hear him moving if he gets too close. He settles for a grin. 

Deacon hold the plasma cell and frag grenade while Nick wraps some tape around the two, then Deacon holds that tapped grouping with the fusion cell and Nick puts more tape around that. Then, he hands the entire lopsided package to Nick. He’s the only one who can see where it needs to go and has the strength to throw it that far.

“Pull the pin and throw that at the Swan,” Deacon whispers. “Or like the general pond area. That monster’ll be our distraction. Then, we use my stealth boy to get the fuck out of here.”

Nick nods as starts to move toward the fencing, the rest stay grouped near the car.

“Will that even work? I thought it was a _personal_ stealth field,” High Rise says voice low and slightly panicked, but it’s better than the outright fear that was there before.

“No idea, but we gotta try, right?” Deacon replies and there are resolved nods all around. “We all have to be touching so, it’s probably easiest to just hold hands.”

J8 takes the lead and grabs High Rise’s hand and then Drummer’s. “Ready," she says.

Deacon turns to where Nick has stopped, he’s just on the other side of the large plaque that has become unreadable over the centuries. Nick stands and moves down the steps to get a better view of the pond. Deacon grabs High Rise’s free hand and starts to pull them up the hill. Once Nick throws the frag, they’ll and dash over to him, Deacon will turn on his stealth boy and grab the detective as they go by. He doesn’t know if the field will cover them all, but if it does, they’ll only have about two minutes of coverage at best.

Out of the corner of his eye, Deacon sees a warbled section of air moving. He looks down toward the subway station and about half way up the small hill, on the opposite side of the fence, Deacon catches sight of the warble again, the Courser was moving up toward Nick. _Fuck._

“Nick, throw it!” he shouts. A second too late.

A blue streak of laser fire flashes. Deacon can’t see Nick from where they are and he doesn’t know if the Courser hit its target. Deacon lets go of High Rise’s hand and tells them to run, pointing toward the way they came; they can’t bring a Courser to Goodneighbour’s gates, not with one of their most important agents calling that town home. Then, Deacon dashes across the street to Nick, pulling his plasma pistol out and firing a few shots at where the Courser was, hoping to force it to move and reassess.

Deacon skids to a halt next to Nick and starts pulling him back up of the stairs. The damage doesn’t seem too bad, the Courser caught him along his upper chest and right arm, the one holding the frag. His synth form is more resistant to laser fire than any human, but it’s burnt the shit out of Nick’s clothes. 

“Throw it at the shimmer,” he hisses. Screw the Swan, that Courser bastard has to _die._

“The blast might catch us,” Nick replies but he is scanning the street below them, trying to find the Courser.

“Maybe,” Deacon hedges. Where the hell did it go?

Deacon catches a shimmer, near the car they had been crouched behind, about the same time Nick does. Nick lobs the grenade so it bounces under the car and they turn and run like hell in the other direction.

Most of the vehicles littering the Wastes can take quite the beating before their nuclear cores become unstable and explodes, but each and every one of them is a ticking time bomb. The fusion cell tapped to the frag will explode with a force comparable to the grenade, all but ensuring that the car’s nuclear core explodes as well, and the plasma cell will cover a wide area with corrosive material. 

It’ll be one hell of a distraction if they can get out of the blast radius. 

Up ahead, High Rise, Drummer Boy, and J8 have nearly made it to the end of The Common. Deacon flinches and looks back as the frag and fusion cell combo goes off behind them, the sound leaving a ringing noise in his ears, but it's nothing compared to the explosion of the car a moment later. 

They’ve almost made to the end of the State House when the shock wave from the small nuclear explosion catches Nick and Deacon. It’s like a Behemoth has hit them solidly in the back with a large section of pipe and they fly forward several feet before landing heavily on the street. The heat of the explosion licking their backs. 

Deacon is dazed. He’s pretty sure he cracked his head on a broken section of pavement as they hit the ground. He can’t hear anything aside from a loud ringing noise. Then, Nick is tugging him up and forcing him to keep moving. The sudden movement makes him nauseated and he feels like vomiting. His legs are jelly and Deacon stumbles, an arm wraps around his back to keep him upright. _‘Concussion,’_ his dad’s voice informs him, _‘Moderate; treat with a stimpak.’_

Deacon fumbles at his tool belt, he can’t function like this: with his brain a soggy mess, and throbbing like it's ready split his skull open. He finally finds his stimpak pouch and pulls one out. Nick pauses in his dragging of Deacon when they reach High Rise and company and Deacon takes the opportunity to jab the stimpak in his arm. He feels the ache in his head lessen and the need to puke go away. He tucks the spent stim in another pouch -Sun will refill empty stim needles for less money than it costs to buy fresh ones. He wishes he had some Mentats, though; his head still feels soggy. At least his legs are solid under him again. They need to keep moving, no telling if that explosion caught the Courser too. 

“Holy fuck, Dee,” High Rise gasps as they join up. “I thought you were dead there for a second.”

“We might yet, be,” Deacon says with a tight smile, “Give me your, hand.”

Deacon hits the button on his stealth boy and after a few seconds of flickering, the field covers the four of them. Deacon grabs Nick’s hand and it’s clear the stealth boy is straining to cover all of them. He tells Nick to get them to the Charles River as quickly as possible, the field won’t last long, but hopefully it’ll be long enough for them to lose the Courser if it’s still alive.

It takes them about five minutes of shuffling running to navigate the rubble-strewn, side street off The Common, but soon they are exiting onto a street that runs parallel to the river. The Amphitheatre is just ahead of them. Deacon’s stealth boy died several minutes ago, but that’s not bad, considering it had to hide five people. They huddle near the concrete fencing between the street and the river bank below, under the overhead walkway, and take a moment to pause.

“We goin’ to Ticon?” High Rise asks voice hushed. 

“We can’t let a Courser follow us to Goodneighbour, so yeah, right now that seems the best option,” Deacon replies. “Even if that means burnin’ a safehouse.”

There’s a noise of surprise from Drummer and J8. They probably didn’t know that burning a safehouse was an option. A last ditch one, to be sure, but an option all the same.

High Rise growls. “ _Fuck._ ” This has got to be hard for him, Ticon is his baby. “Deacon there’s some shit going on here that you’ve been kept outta the loop on, and if we survive this, I’m gonna tell Sly Nick exactly where he can stick his bullshit. Fuck HQ, you're the only one I trust, man.”

Deacon squeezes his shoulder. It means a lot to him that High Rise still trusts him.

“We really don’t have time to play the blame game, kiddos,” Nick says. “Where are we goin’ and how do we get there?”

“Across the river,” Deacon says, “Do you see a building with red stripes on its upper levels?” After a moment, Nick nods. “We need to get there. There’s a bridge up ahead and probably some raiders; they like to converge around it.”

Deacon spares a glance behind them, but he doesn’t see a shifting warble of air. Then, they are moving forward again, following the river northeast to the bridge that will take them across to Ticonderoga. They take cover against a brick building, off the street. Nick gestures for them to get down as he slips around the side. He’s the only one still in top form, even with the laser burns across his chest. 

High Rise and Drummer are looking drawn and tired from traipsing across the ruins of Boston half of the night and from the stimpaks that are swimming through their systems. J8 is fairing better than them, Gen 3s are generally more hearty than humans, but she’s clearly shaken by the night’s events. Deacon is still trying to shake off the effects of his concussion, it’ll take several days before he’s back to normal cognitive function, even with another stimpak. He’ll have to see Sun when, _if_ , he gets back to Diamond City. At least he’s paid his bill in full.

Deacon warned Nick to not use his gun. If the Courser is still alive, it will likely lead it right to them. Deacon slips around the street side of the building to come at the few raiders milling about the bridge’s entrance from behind. He can see Nick grabbing a raider in the low moonlight as he creeps up behind one leaning against the fender of a truck; there’s a fire burning in a barrel in the back of the truck, casting an orange glow over the raider’s shoulders.

The raider near the bridge's entrance crumples and Nick darts to the next one. The man leaning against the truck must see the movement because he stands and calls out into the dark. Deacon rams his knife into the side of the man’s neck. 

Deacon steps away from the flailing raider and glances around for any other’s that they might have missed. It looks like the raiders are in the progress of constructing a wall across the bridge’s entrance, probably to better extort caravans that might use this bridge to get to and from Bunker Hill. Nick finds his side and whispers that he doesn’t see or hear any other raiders. In the orange glow of the fire, Deacon can see splotches of blood on Nick’s coat. He puts away his knife and whistles to let the others know they can join them.

As High Rise, Drummer, and J8 round the brick building to join them, Nick suddenly grabs his arm and looks down the street, away from the bridge.

“Not alone, kid,” Nick says and Deacon follows his gaze. A half a block away, Deacon can see someone jogging toward them, there’s a bit of a limp in their stride. _Shit, shit, shit!_ Will they ever be rid of that synthetic sonuvabitch?

Deacon gives a sharp whistle to warn High Rise and company to get moving and pulls out his plasma pistol. As the three of them join Deacon and Nick, Deacon waves them on, toward the bridge. Nick and Deacon start moving backward, trying to keep their sights on the rapidly approaching figure. 

Suddenly, it speaks. “J8-67, recall code Rho-”

Deacon fires at the Courser; if it finishes that sentence they’ll lose J8. The Courser snarls and tries to dodge the plasma shots, but one catches it in the shoulder. It twists at the impact and for a second it looks like it might go down, then it refocuses on them and rushes the group. Deacon’s never seen anything move that fast, then Nick’s shoving him away. Deacon stumbles and falls when he catches a foot on a heaved section of pavement. He scuffs the palms his hands as he hits the ground. 

Nick fires twice before the Courser is on him, Deacon can’t tell if the shots hit it. The Courser rams the length of its laser rifle into Nick’s abdomen and Nick staggers backward. Then, the Courser snaps the rifle up, catching Nick under his chin, and it finishes by broadsiding Nick across his face, sending him to the ground. The detective doesn’t get up. 

The Courser starts firing at High Rise, Drummer Boy, and J8. In their shock, they haven’t managed to find cover and a couple shots hit Drummer before the group can react. High Rise starts firing back at the Courser while dragging Drummer behind a half-finished section of the junk wall the raiders were erecting. The Courser dodges the fire and J8 rushes it, trying to distract it from firing at HR and Drummer. The tactic succeeds, but only for a moment, as the Courser side-steps her clumsy attempt to hit it and cracks its rifle across her face. 

She goes down, out cold.

Deacon stands, grabbing his plasma pistol from the ground. The Courser sees his movement and turns, firing its laser rifle at Deacon’s chest. The plating in his bomber jacket is singed through, but the plates in his vest protect him and he fires at the Courser. It dives out of the way and Deacon follows it, trying to get a steady bead on the synth. Deacon fires again, landing a shot on the laser rifle, melting the plastic casing. The Courser tries to fire at Deacon, but the rifle makes a warning beep and the Courser tosses the useless weapon to the ground. It charges at Deacon. 

He tries to jump out of the synth’s path, firing as he does so, but the Courser catches him around the waist and slams Deacon to the ground. He’s more shocked at the impact than anything and the Courser rips his plasma pistol from his hand. The sting from his scraped palms focuses Deacon back on the situation. He brings his legs together and kicks the Courser in the stomach, knocking him back. Deacon scrambles back to his feet as the Courser gives an angry growl and launches at Deacon.

The Courser wraps one strong hand around Deacon’s throat, hate twisting its face. From this close, he can see that the Courser did not escape the car explosion unscathed. One side of its body is a burnt, melted mess where the plasma from Deacon’s cell caught it and it’s clearly favouring that side. How this fucking thing is still functioning, he has no idea. 

Deacon starts struggling. _‘Not again’_ , he thinks _‘Oh hell, not like this,’_. He’s thrashing, trying to get leverage on the ground to pull away. The Courser lifts him off the ground, tightening its grip until Deacon is sure he feels something crack in his throat. Like a snake, the Courser’s grip just gets tighter and tighter until Deacon can’t breathe at all. He’s trying to claw the Courser’s hands from around his throat, but he knows it’s a lost cause now. 

His vision is starting to get dark and he can’t hear anything aside from his own slowing heartbeat. Then, from somewhere far away he can hear Amata calling his name-

A shrill howling breaks across Deacon’s face and he drops to the ground. The shock of solid earth beneath his feet, and then his knees as his legs buckle, pulls him away from Amata’s voice, but the Courser’s hand is still around his neck. He barely feels the sharp sting of something poking against his neck and then, _finally_ , the Courser’s hand is pried back from his neck. Deacon starts to suck in greedy, gasps of air. It feels like there’s still an obstruction around his throat, though. He can’t breathe properly and each breath is like sucking in a lung full of needles. He needs another stimpak before the swelling makes it completely impossible to breathe.

The fog recedes as he scrambles for a stimpak and Deacon sees Nick standing above him, the Courser’s severed arm in one hand. Nick just saved his life, _again._ His fingers fumble with the stimpak made stupid by the lack of oxygen, and Nick takes the stim from his hand. Deacon taps the thick muscles of his trapezius, silently directing Nick where to inject it. He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to speak due to the trauma and it’s better that he doesn’t try. 

Nick draws back the collar of Deacon’s jacket and pokes the stimpak into his flesh. As he’s depressing the plunger, Deacon spots the Courser starting to stand behind Nick. He feels a flash of hopelessness; why won’t that fucking thing just _die?!_ Deacon points behind Nick, trying to focus his attention on the problem behind him. Deacon hears High Rise’s laser rifle fire, and the Courser stumbles slightly from the impact, but it barrels into Nick without stopping. 

The stim breaks off in Deacon’s neck, leaving the needle embedded in the muscles of his trapezius, as the Courser catches Nick around the waist with his one good arm and throws him to the ground. Deacon’s pitched back, catching himself on hand with a hiss at the pain in his neck and palm, but the stim is working and Deacon can breathe again; he can feel the cartilage in his throat pull itself back together from where the Courser had crushed it.

Deacon scrambles to his feet, off to the side he can see J8 shaking herself back into full awareness. He scans the ground, trying to find his plasma pistol, but he can’t see shit outside the small circle of light the fire is casting. Behind him the Courser is speaking, voice low and pained.

“You are an inferior model,” it's telling Nick. The Courser has somehow managed to pin Nick to the ground with one boot on his chest and it's pulling on his right arm with its one good one. Nick grunts in pain. “and though your skeleton is nearly impervious to fractures and breaks, joints are an inherently weak point in all creatures.”

As the Courser speaks it keeps pulling on Nick’s arm. Nick is struggling to get out from under the Courser’s boot, but he can’t seem to get any leverage. Deacon gives up looking for his plasma pistol as he hears the sparking and tearing of metal. He turns as Nick starts howling, High Rise fires at the Courser again, and though all the laser shots impact, the synth won’t _fall_. Its outfit must offer it a measure of energy and ballistic protection.

Deacon pulls out his knife and darts to the Courser. He wraps one arm under the severed arm of the Courser, yanking it backward and pulls the sharp blade of his knife across the exposed section of the Courser’s neck. He’s so _furious_ that this monster will not _die_ -that it _dares_ to name Nick as the inferior one, that it thinks it can just kill them all with half of its body all fucked up and only _one_ arm, that this _bastard_ just about choked the life out of him- that Deacon forces the blade of his knife through the soft tissue of the Courser’s neck until it’s scraping against the metal spine of the synth. 

As powerful as the Courser is, it still needs its blood to function properly. It should have bled out when Nick cut its arm off - _how_ he did that is still a mystery, but now it has no choice. Its synthetic heart will pump all of its blood onto the ground that there’s nothing that damn thing can do about it. The Courser’s knees buckle and it collapses to the ground, blood still spurting in time with its heartbeat. Deacon stabs his knife into the Courser’s shoulder, trying to get its hand to release Nick. Finally, in its death spasms, it does and Deacon shoves the synth’s heavy corpse away. 

He kneels next to Nick. His arm is sticking out of his trench coat at an odd angle. Nick is breathing heavily and Deacon can hear his coolant motor running overtime.

“Jesus, Nick,” Deacon says, his voice his hoarse and scratchy; foreign to his own ears. He starts fumbling with the belt on Nick’s trench coat; he’s going to try and make a sling. The needle embedded in his neck causes a twinge of pain. Deacon stops long enough to yank the metal shard out. “Is it still attached?”

Nick rolls his head over to look at Deacon. His eyes seem dimmed. “Yeah. Not by much, though. Kinda wishing that sonuvabitch had torn the thing clean off, then at least my pain receptors would stop sending signals.”

“Can you move it at all?”

Nick looks at his hand for a few seconds, but the bare joints don’t even twitch. “No.”

Deacon yanks the belt out of Nick’s trench. “Well, it’s a good thing that I’ve had some experience with Gen 2s then, isn’t it? Because I’m pretty sure your electrical tape is not up to the job.” He tries to clear his throat, it still aches and he probably shouldn’t be talking.

Nick chuckles and then winces. “Not this time, anyway.”

The trench coat belt isn’t going to be enough. He needs a second belt to secure the damaged arm to Nick’s side, plus the belt for the sling. Deacon undoes his tool belt to get the one on his pants. Hopefully, they won’t slide down his hips while they finish their trek to Ticonderoga. In the background, Deacon can hear High Rise speaking with J8. He hopes Drummer made it.

“High Rise,” Deacon calls. “I need a hand over here.” He looks at Nick. “I’m going to tuck your arm against your torso and it's probably gonna hurt, like a lot, so just bare with me.”

Both High Rise and J8 come over, but the young woman pauses at the sight of the Courser. Nick grits his teeth as Deacon maneuvers his arm up and in, bending the synth’s elbow so the arm is draped over his body. HR kneels next to Deacon, and he explains that he needs High Rise to help him hold Nick’s arm in place while he sits up and then to keep it steady while Deacon uses the belt of Nick’s trench coat to secure it to his body. Then, Deacon will use his belt as a sling. 

They get Nick upright and as Deacon is tightening the belt around Nick’s torso, he asks after Drummer Boy. Behind them, Deacon notes that J8 is looking for something on the ground.

“He’s alive,” High Rise says. “I had another stim on me, but the kid has never been in a situation that required the use of a stimpak, let alone two. His body is having trouble handling them. He doesn’t have a tolerance like me and you, Dee.” He shoots Deacon a wry smile. “We gotta get him back to Ticon, a-sap.”

“You boys run into these Coursers on a regular basis?” Nick asks as Deacon starts on securing the second belt.

“More than we should. More than most agents, that’s for damn sure,” High Rise replies. “Shit, I bet even Glory hasn’t seen two Coursers.”

“At least,” Deacon amends, “not two in less than a year.”

Deacon hears a metallic scrap on the ground and leans so he can see around High Rise’s frame. J8 has found some sort of large blade and is dragging it back to the Courser. He draws breath to ask her what she’s doing when she hauls the massive thing over her head and slams it down on the sliced area of the Courser’s neck. High Rise jumps and scrambles over Nick’s legs, swearing.

“Uh, J8?” Deacon asks, voice a mix between concerned and wary. “Whatcha doin?”

J8 curses and brings the blade back up, in the firelight, Deacon notes it’s a tire iron that’s been modified with a wicked looking blade. Must have belonged to one of the raiders. That’s probably what Nick used to cut the Courser’s arm off. 

“I know him,” she says and brings the blade back down. The second blow severs the Courser’s head. “This _asshole_ -” her voice hitches, and Deacon realizes she’s crying. She drops the tire iron and Deacon moves to her side. “He taught me how to shoot. He taught a lot of us, the ones that wanted to escape. We thought he was one of the good ones.”

She’s sobbing now, a combination of the night’s stress and the betrayal now laying at her feet. Deacon pulls her into a hug, she clutches at his coat like she’s drowning. 

“Maybe he was,” Deacon murmurs, stroking her short hair.

He uses the male pronoun for her benefit. Coursers are little more than advanced assaultrons or sentry bots; masculine only because a man’s frame is built for raw power and muscle mass. If it had developed enough of a sense of self to be considered a man, The Institute had surely wiped that before they sent it to reacquire J8.

“He must have tracked me down, somehow,” J8 says after she’s calmed somewhat. She starts digging through her clothing -a hodgepodge collection of Waster gear that is too large for her frame- running a hand through her hair. 

Deacon gently grabs her arms. “Whoa, easy there. Take a deep breath and think. If they were tracking you, it’ll either by through an implant or a keepsake. I might be able to find an implant, but not here; not now. We have to keep moving, okay?”

J8 nods, then she suddenly thinks of something. She digs around in her pockets until she pulls out an old subway token. “We all have one of these. It’s like a symbol of our desire to be free, to be on the surface. Z5,” she gestures to the Courser, “collected them for us, but it's just another symbol of our slavery.” J8 kicks Z5’s corpse, cursing at it.

“Hey Nick,” Deacon calls over his shoulder; his voice is starting to lose strength, “Do you see my plasma pistol anywhere?”

There’s a scuffling noise and a grunt as High Rise helps Nick to his feet. Nick walks around the edge of the light, holding his broken arm close, after a moment he kicks Deacon’s plasma pistol into the light.

“Thanks,” Deacon says and he picks it up. If he keeps his voice low, that should help it last longer. He hands the pistol to J8; she hesitantly takes it. “Plasma has the dubious fortune of being able to melt pretty much everything it comes in contact with. Throw that token on the ground and shoot it, but step back. You don’t want to get hit with the splash.”

J8 nods and drops the token. Deacon shows her where she needs to stand to be out of the splash radius and explains that his plasma pistol doesn’t have the kick of a ballistic weapon, so you don’t need to compensate for it. There’s a moment of complete silence, with only the crackling of the fire in the background, then J8 fires the pistol and the token disappears in a glob of green goo. She watches for a moment as the token bubbles under the corrosive plasma, then she hands Deacon his pistol back, satisfied.

The three of them leave J8 with the Courser, she needs a moment of closure, and they head for Drummer Boy. He greets them with a smile, but the kid is shivering and pale. Not good. Deacon slides out of his bomber jacket and helps Drummer into it. Ticon is still several blocks from here. High Rise and Deacon help lift Drummer on to his feet, between them, they are supporting most of his weight.

High Rise calls for J8 and she appears with her assault rifle propped against one shoulder and a dark bundle of clothing in the other.

\- - - - - 

They limp their way back to the safety of Ticonderoga, thankfully not meeting another soul on the trip. Deacon wonders if that’s because the raiders who normally hang out on the bridge saw one figure beating the shit out of five others and collectively said ‘fuck this shit’, or if there too strung out on chems somewhere to care that there are people crossing the bridge unmolested. He’s not sure which scenario he prefers.

As they pile into the elevator that will take them to the top floors of Ticon, it gives an ominous groan that has Deacon freaking out a bit. Oh the irony, to have survived a hellish fight with a Courser, only to be done in by a piece of Old-World junk. High Rise starts sweet-talking his elevator as he hits the button, telling it that now that Deacon’s back it’ll get a good going over, it just has to get them to the top floor. 

Deacon protests being ‘volunteered’ for maintenance; he’s a world-class spy, not a Ticon’s superintendent. High Rise threatens to tell Ticonderoga that Deacon was willing to burn this safehouse to keep Goodneighbour safe. The elevator stutters on its rise and Deacon starts babbling that he didn’t mean it, that they had always planned on killing the Courser before they made it back to Ticonderoga, and he swears that if they make it to the top floor he’ll do whatever maintenance there is. Nick starts laughing as the elevator’s ride smooths out; J8 and Drummer look at Deacon and HR like they’re crazy for talking to an inanimate object.

They get Drummer set up in the small medbay just on the other side of the elevators. Deacon directs them to get blanks from the other rooms as he tucks a couple of pillows under the kid’s legs. When High Rise and J8 get back, they’ve brought with them the few other agents that are stationed at Ticon, two of them Deacon knows from his time here: Uncle and Parade. One is new. He asks J8 to grab a can of water as he tucks the blankets around Drummer. They’ve got to keep him warm and hydrated.

“Did HQ ever send you a doctor or even a field medic?” Deacon asks as holds the can of water for Drummer. He drinks some of it and then turns away. It’s probably not sitting well. Drummer could use an IV but Deacon doesn’t trust himself to do it. His father was the doctor, not him.

High Rise sighs, frustration evident. “No. They’ve been ignorin’ a lot of requests lately with all the shit goin’ down in University Point.”

“Someone should sit with him and watch him.”

“Hey, Uncle,” High Rise says to the small gathering behind him, “Sit with the kid for a while, yeah? I'll get someone to replace you in a few hours.”

“Sure thing,” Uncle says and moves around the group. He gives Deacon a suspicious glance but settles in next to Drummer.

Deacon grins. “Aw, Uncle, where’s the love? I get one little face change and suddenly everyone’s suspicious.”

Not only does he no longer look the same, his voice is all fucked up from the Courser’s grip. 

“Look, buddy, if High Rise let you in here you’re obviously trustworthy, but I don’t know you from Adam.”

HR laughs. “This is _Deacon_ , man.”

Uncle’s whole continence changes. “Deacon? Shit, man, why didn't you say so?” He pulls Deacon into a one-armed hug. “I kept tellin’ HR that if you ever came by we’d welcome you with open arms. To hell with HQ’s commands.”

“Damn straight,” Parade chimes in from the sidelines. “You’ll always be a Roga first, Dee, and we look after our own.”

Deacon smiles. “Oh, stop. I’m blushing.” 

High Rise throws an arm around his shoulder and leads him out of the make-shift medbay. “They’re right, man, you ever need it, you always got a home here. Sly Nick can say whatever he wants, but we all know you’d never betray us.” He deposits Deacon next to Nick, who has been hovering out of the way, near the elevators, waiting patiently for them to deal with Drummer Boy. “We’ll look after Drummer and J8, you look after Valentine. You’re the only one who can, anyways.”

“You got all my stuff in storage somewhere?”

High Rise grins and shakes his head. “Naw, man, your room is still upstairs, exactly as you left it. No one wanted to haul out all that robotic crap you accumulated or that heavy-ass safe you keep in there. And before you ask, no we didn’t go through any of it. You know Parade is the only one around here, besides you, that can pick a lock, and even she can’t pick the lock you’ve got on that thing.”

“Hey, I’m slightly offended you think that I thought that you would go through my stuff,” Deacon huffs with mock hurt. He frankly surprised High Rise hadn’t given the room to someone else.

“No you’re not, ‘cause you knew she’d try. No luck, though.” High Rise says with a laugh and leaves Deacon with Nick, so he can deal with his safehouse agents.

Deacon gestures for Nick to follow him up the stairs.

“You’re a welcome face around here,” Nick observes, voice a little unsteady from the pain, but otherwise, you’d never know he almost had his arm ripped off by a Courser. “In a manner of speakin’.”

Deacon chuckles as they head up the second flight of stairs. 

“Face changes, codenames, do you folks have a secret handshake as well?”

“Ya know I tried to incorporate that, but it never caught on. We do have signs and countersigns, though. Real spy stuff right there.” Deacon leads them around a short corner. “And here we are, second one on the left.”

Deacon directs Nick to enter first and he follows behind. He feels along the wall for the light switch and flicks it on -he’ll have to have a look the generators before he leaves again. He talked with Parade about the maintenance that they needed, but if the elevator was any indicator, it’s not been looked after. 

God, it really is just like he left it. 

The room is a small space; an old office back before the war. His bed is tucking into the far end of the room with his safe next to it, acting as a nightstand. The safe has an electric lock that requires the input of numbers on an old keyboard pad rather than by dialing numbers rotationally. To make the lock work you first need a fusion cell to power it -Deacon never kept one in the room- making picking via traditional methods impossible. A sufficient electrical shock could pop the lock open, but when Deacon first put it together he figured that no one would have the technical know-how to attempt such a thing. The scratches on the safe’s door indicate that at least one attempt has been made to figure out his lock.

Next to the safe is the room’s old desk. Its surface is clean but pitted and scarred from his hobby of picking apart robots or maintaining his pistol. The rest of the room's space is taken up by boxes upon boxes of scavenged robot and synth parts. Some of it is in old filing cabinet drawers, or cardboard boxes that are still capable of holding materials, some are metal crates scavenged from other parts of Ticon, or in one notable case: the hollowed out torso of an old protectron. 

The room has a large window on the same wall as the desk, but Deacon had long ago plastered newspaper and old pre-war posters over it so the light and view could not be seen. He never felt safe with that giant window reminding him just how high off the ground they were. 

There’s a corkboard on the opposite wall chalk full of his notes on synth designs, sketches on their various parts, and speculation as to construction -it’s hard to get a whole picture as to how a Gen 1 or 2 synth works when they’re often full of bullet holes or plasma burns. As well as notes on assaultrons, sentry bots, and protectrons -weaknesses are noted, possible avenues of reprogramming, and being all RobCo robots there are notes where the same parts were used in the construction of all three models and possibilities of combining them into something new. 

Engineering had been in passion in the vault; James used to say he got it from his mother. (Deacon sometimes wondered how that was possible since he’d never even known her and that seemed like it should be a nurture over nature thing.) During his time in the vault, the interest had been broad, it had to be to deal with the various issues that often cropped up in a place that was pushing 200 years old. Once he was thrown into the Wastes, it had morphed into a single-minded focus in robotics, with a side in weapons and ultimately an interest in A.I.s. Well, just the _one_ , really. 

The survival skills he picked aside from his technological know-how were a by-product of that tumultuous time during Project Purity and trying to get it working. If he could have, Deacon would have spent all his time in the old RobCo factory outside of D.C. or even in Raven Rock had that been possible, trying to put all the leftover technology and knowledge of the Old-World to good use. He firmly believes that technology is something to be used to make lives better and to be shared with everyone. It is too amazing and incredible to be kept for a select few. 

The Vault, The Brotherhood, The Enclave, they all wanted to keep what they had for themselves, refused to share it with those that needed it. Refused to allow for those with the potential to learn to use it, to advance it. Yes, technology lead to the destruction of the world, but Deacon knew that it could also be its salvation. Project Purity would have never worked without Braun’s G.E.C.K., and the world will never recover completely without technology’s help. 

“Have a seat in my lab, Mr. Valentine,” Deacon says and pats the surface of the desk.

Nick levers himself up. “If you start demandin’ I call you Dr. Frankenstein, I’m outta here.”

“Well, don’t sing ‘Daisy Bell’ and I won’t,” Deacon replies as he starts undoing the belts holding Nick’s arm. He swallows a couple of times, his voice keeps getting weaker; he should just stop talking. 

“Not exactly an A.I., kid, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Nick hisses as his arm comes free of Deacon’s make-shift sling. Together they start to pull Nick’s coat off. 

“So I’ve gathered, Nick. Why don’t you save me the trouble of having to keep talking with this messed up voice and tell me all about you. Cause this repair will probably take all night.”

“Oh no, it won’t,” Nick says as they finally get his trench off his busted arm. They spare a look at his button down as Nick pulls his hat and tie off; the left side has several burnt holes in it, but the skin underneath is relatively undamaged. “Cut it off, kid; I can buy a new one at Fallon’s.” Deacon pulls a pair of heavy scissors out of the drawer of the desk. He doesn’t keep bandage scissors around. “You’re gonna find the sensor nodule in my shoulder and shut it off so this godawful pain goes away, and then you’re gonna sleep.”

“Nick-”

“Shut up for a moment, will ya? Do you even get how close to dyin’ you were tonight? Or do you just choose not to acknowledge it?” Nick shakes his head. Disbelief or frustration? Deacon can’t tell. He decides not to try and parse it and instead continues cutting Nick’s shirt. “Christ, by the time I got enough of my senses back after that bastard put me down, you were hardly movin’. That thing had you up off the ground like you weighed nothin’ at all and for a moment I thought…” Nick’s eyes flick to what is surely a spectacular bruise forming around Deacon’s neck, and he scowls. “I fuckin’ saw red, kid. I haven’t been that angry in a long time.”

Deacon considers making a joke deflect all the nasty recollections that are happening in this moment, but he’s pretty sure Nick won’t appreciate his humour right now. So he just says, “Thank you.” Then he adds, with a smirk, because he can’t help but make a tiny joke: “ _Again._ ”

“You’re welcome, _again._ Anyways, it’s the middle of the night and you need to rest. Repairs can be started tomorrow. And you really gotta stop tryin’ to die, kid; my coolant pump won’t be able to handle the stress.”

Deacon shakes his head and shrugs. He would love to stop having such intimate relations with death, but this isn’t going to be last time someone tries to kill him and one of these days someone will succeed. 

Nick sighs. “Yeah, yeah. Impossible request, I know. Could you at least buy more armour? Preferably something for your neck.”

Deacon grins. “I’ll talk to Charlie as soon as we get back.”

They pull off the tattered remains of Nick’s shirt and Deacon finally gets a good look at Nick’s shoulder. It’s a mess, to say the least, and also far more complicated than the Gen 2s he’s pulled apart. It’s much closer to a human shoulder that that of a robot like an assaultron. 

Deacon can see the twisted remains of what he thinks is something similar to a clavicle, but what is the main part of the shoulder attachment, a simple ball in socket joint, seems to be mostly intact. The whole thing was probably designed to come apart for maintenance purposes, though the Courser had torn the wiring that supplied the electricity to make the arm function. However, what is really interesting Deacon, is this strange, shredded wire mesh that appears to run under Nick’s synthetic skin. Deacon gently touches it, trying to get a better look at it, but Nick immediately flinches away. 

“You're supposed to stop the pain, not cause it.”

“Sorry,” Deacon mumbles, utterly fascinated. 

This mesh must be what transfers sensations to Nick’s processor. It looks like it might be spun copper or gold, hell it could be a mix; very fine and yet woven in such a tight weave as to be flexible and strong. However, here it’s a snarled mess and Deacon has no idea how to even begin to repair it. The tools alone, he’d need a needle and thread!

“Do you know where this sensor nodule is, or what it looks like? Cause, I’ll be honest, I’ve never even seen half the tech you’ve got in here Nick.”

Nick uses his good arm to point to the bare skeleton of his right arm. Up near the elbow hinge, just below where the synthetic skin starts again and between the wire cage that once supported the forearm’s covering, there is a small rectangular piece of circuitry that is embedded on a strip of metal that sits above the wire cords that act as the tendons for Nick’s hand. Sticking up from underneath it are more shredded pieces of that fine mesh, slightly corroded by the elements. The rectangle is dented on one corner like something sharp was rammed at it.

“After I lost the covering on this is part of my arm, the pain from the sensor mesh wouldn’t stop, it was agony -it was like someone had set fire to my skin. It took me longer that I care to admit to figure out that that little box was the cause of it. I took my screwdriver to it. Pain stopped after that.”

Right, so Deacon needed to look for a small rectangular piece of circuitry that the mesh connected to. He starts to gently pry back the mesh and tattered pieces of Nick’s synthetic skin to get a better look at his shoulder. Nick hisses, but holds still.

“How did it happen?” he asks, tilting his head toward Nick's bare arm, trying to distract him.

“Got into a fight with Diamond City’s generator. The generator won.”

“Turbine?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Ouch._ Oh! I think I found it.” 

It's tucked on a strip of metal on the underside of the wire frame near where Nick’s trapezius muscle would attach to his deltoid if he had muscles. Deacon doesn’t want to smash it with a screwdriver, he’d like to preserve some manner of sensation if he can. Deacon digs in his desk drawers for a pair of needle-nose pliers. He has a pair of small ones for delicate situations, like this one. If he can remove the circuit that should stop the sensation of pain and maybe later he can reattach it once he’s figured out a way to repair the mesh.

“And...got it!” Deacon plucks the circuit board out, after a moment of resistance, and holds it up for Nick to see.

The relief is immediate, Nick slumps from his rigid position. “Thanks. Not sure how much more of that I was gonna be able to handle.”

“What? My wit didn’t keep you occupied?” Deacon rotates the circuit so Nick can better see it, then he looks around for someplace safe to store it. Ideally the actual _safe_ , but he doesn’t have a fusion cell. Hmm.

“What wit?”

Deacon whips around, eyebrow raised. “I distinctly remember you sayin’ you liked my witticisms-”

“And Shakespeare quotes, but you're forgettin’ the caveat of ‘maybe’.”

Deacon taps his temple. “Selective memory.”

Nick grabs his arm and pulls him back toward the desk. Then, he plucks the pliers from Deacon’s grasp, careful not to damage the circuitry, and places it down beside him on the desk. Deacon raises one eyebrow in question but doesn't resist. 

“I’ll find a place for that. Someplace ah…safe,” Deacon says, with a bit of a laugh, tilting his head at his safe.

Nick’s hand moves to gently touches the tender area of Deacon’s neck and he freezes. Nick’s face flits through a dozen different expressions, ranging from anger to sorrow to frustration, as he gingerly drags his fingers over the darkening bruise around Deacon’s throat. Deacon swallows a couple of times, unsure of what to do. Nick’s face finally settles into a frown, staring intently at Deacon’s neck.

“ _‘And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; / And my soul from that shadow that lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted -nevermore.’_ ” Nick’s voice is so low and that Deacon has to strain to hear it. Then, his eyes flick up to Deacon's; their intensity is frightening. “Don’t die, don’t _almost_ die, ever again.”

Despite the previous assertion that he couldn’t make that promise, Deacon gives a slight nod. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At Ticon, Nick quotes that last three lines of _The Raven_ by Edgar Allan Poe. 
> 
> Did I say this part was going to be fun? What I meant was, I liked writing it cause it had Nick and High Rise and action and almost death. Along with Deacon, that's like my top five favourite things.


	6. Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For this relief much thanks; 'tis bitter cold_   
>  _and I am sick at heart._
> 
> _-Hamlet (1.1.10)_

After that strange moment has passed and Nick’s drops his hand -looking far more put together than Deacon feels, he helps Nick back into his belt brace and sling. Without support, the arm is likely to come off completely and Deacon doesn’t want to cause any more damage between now and tomorrow when he has to figure out how to put it back together. It’s been a while since he’d last had the opportunity to work on a robot or synth and he’ll have to go through his notes again. 

He helps Nick slide his good arm into his trench coat and drapes it over his damaged shoulder -synth or not, he should have at least some modesty, and Nick tugs his hat on.

He’s glad Nick’s insisted on sleep because he suddenly feels his adrenaline crash breaking over him and he’s in no condition to start working on delicate machinery. He might not be tomorrow either, but in the morning he’ll take another stimpak, eat some food, pester Parade for a Mentat and go over his notes. Then, he’ll see where he is. 

Deacon doesn’t want to have Nick go for longer than is necessary without the use of his arm, indeed with it in such a delicate situation, but he also doesn’t want to screw it up either. It’s one thing to pull apart a synth, it's entirely another to put one back together.

Before he hits the sac, Deacon rolls in a desk chair from the armoury next door and tells Nick he’s welcome to stay here or wander back downstairs and hang out in the main common area. Deacon also digs through his boxes of robot and synth parts (Okay, so now that he looks at it, he gets why High Rise and company didn’t want to move his stuff out, there’s so much of it. He was here, what? Five months? How did he accumulate _this much_ shit?) to find the metal crate he stores all his intact books in -there’s so many to be found in the Commonwealth, unlike in the Capital, that Deacon had to stop hoarding them all and just keep the ones that interested him. The rest he sold to a wandering trader over at Bunker Hill that had the same level of appreciation for books that he did.

He offers the crate of books for Nick’s perusal in case he gets bored during the night without his detective cases to keep him entertained. 

Nick watches him flit around, trying to be a good host, with no little amusement. Finally, he stills Deacon and tells him firmly to go to bed. Nick informs him that he’s going downstairs to check on Drummer and J8 and that when he comes back to look through Deacon’s books, the kid better be in bed and fast asleep.

Deacon nods earnestly, with wide eyes and a smirk. “Yes, boss.”

Nick snorts and leaves. The word “Wiseass,” floating down the hall behind him. 

Deacon digs out a box from under his bed and finds a few worn pieces of clean clothing. He shrugs out of his vest, draping it over the chair and touches the burnt area of cloth where the Courser’s laser fire failed to make it through Charlie’s thin, steel plates. It’s right over his heart. He finally acknowledges that he almost died tonight and sinks to his knees. 

A wave of anger and hopelessness wash over him at the same time. Why does this keep happening to him? Normal people don’t almost die on this regular of a basis. Even in the Commonwealth, people can go their whole lives without ever really experiencing the dangers of raiders or super mutants or ferals or Gunners or _Coursers_. Why can’t he just go one measly year without it?

Oh, that’s right, because he has to have a cause, doesn’t he? The Lone Wanderer won’t let him free-wheel in someplace as a mechanic or a kooky scientist. He won’t let Deacon just live a life away from the problems of the people, tucked away in some factory or workshop, and let him pursue his robotic hobby. The Lone Wanderer has to be the goddamn _hero_ , the savior of the people; The fucking Saint of the Purifier. The one who helps without the expectation of a reward, the one who won’t let an evil go unpunished no matter how small, the one who won’t stop talking about all the things he should be doing to help the Commonwealth, and Deacon is tired of it. 

He’s so _fucking_ tired of it. He wants to scream at The Wanderer to leave him alone and let him live a normal life. 

Suddenly, anger wins out over hopelessness. Deacon stands and kicks the desk chair away, it rolls and smashes against the stack of robot parts. The boxes shift slightly, making a bit of an upset noise, but it really isn’t satisfying Deacon’s need to just _destroy_ something. He grabs the crate of books he put on the desk for Nick and throws it out of the room. It hits the far hallway wall with a loud _crack_ and the books fly everywhere. That’s better, but somehow he doesn’t feel like he’s made his fucking point to The Wanderer. Deacon glances around, trying to decide on what he should destroy next when his eyes land on his safe. 

There is one way he could prove the point to The Wanderer once and for all that he doesn't want to be that man anymore.

He darts out into the hall, kicking the books out of his path with a snarl. He heads into the armoury and digs through the crates there looking for a fusion cell. It takes him longer than he thought it would, someone has completely reorganized the room since he was last in it, but finally, he finds the ammo box that holds Ticon’s stash of fusion cells. 

As he exits the armoury, he hears both High Rise’s and Nick’s voices calling out to him as they trot down the hallway, but Deacon’s on a mission right now and can be bothered to spare words for them. He settles down next to his safe, pulls out the power cord tucked underneath the keypad and plugs it into the top of the fusion cell. He punches the code in, 2106. The lock clicks back and he yanks the door open. 

Out in the hall, he can hear Nick and High Rise as they survey the scattered books. 

“What the hell?” High Rise says and he crouches to pick up one battered volume.

Nick ignores the books, save to step over them, and enters the room. Deacon pulls out his original copy of _‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’_ and the holotape of his dad and mom. He stands and throws them both in the trash bin near the desk. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulls the modified holotape from his pocket and tosses it into. In for a penny, in for a pound.

He looks at Nick. “Give me your lighter.” 

If he had any alcohol in here he would probably pour it on, maybe once the blaze is going he’ll get some. 

Nick doesn’t move. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Everything’s wrong, Nick. Every-fucking-thing. You’re right, I didn’t acknowledge almost dying out there tonight, I never do. Somehow it just seems that no matter what I do, no matter how dire the situation is, _he_ won’t let me die, so why spend the time trying to analyze it?” Deacon paces in the small space between the bed, safe, and Nick. “There was a time when I wanted to die -oh yes. I tried everything short of actually putting a gun to my head to do just that, but despite being this incredible magnet for bad shit, somehow death always just sails right on by. So give me your lighter, because I’ll never be rid of him, of all this shit, this baggage, and this grief, and this fight until I burn the last vestiges of him.”

Nick looks down at the items in the trash, they must seem fairly innocuous. Certainly not something someone would keep in a safe, let alone in the safe with the kind of lock Deacon designed, but those three things are the very heart of his old life. His dad, the first community he ever helped, the last thing he ever gave Amata. If he was ever going to be just _Deacon_ he needed to be rid of The Lone Wanderer, of that Kid from Vault 101.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we, kid?” Nick says with a sad laugh. “Two people tryin’ to live a life outside of the shadow of the one that came before. I wish I could offer more wisdom, but all I got is that what you’re tryin’ to do here is not the way to go about it. If you’ve kept these things, it means they’re important, and you’ll end up regrettin’ losing them in the long run.”

“What’s one more regret when I’ve got so many? I’m so tired of this. I just want him gone. Please give me your lighter,” Deacon implores.

Nick steps over to Deacon and gently wraps his hand around Deacon’s arm. The movement makes his trench coat start to slide off his buggered shoulder and Deacon darts up to grab it. Then, he stays like that, one hand holding on to Nick’s coat. 

“Ya know, I was sorta expecting you to have a minor freak out a few weeks from now; not tonight.”

Deacon gives Nick a rueful smile. “Yeah, well that’s what happens when you take after your old man and deal with precisely zero of the traumatic shit that’s happened in your life. You have a breaking point where you just want to burn it all. Cleansing fire and all that.”

“Well, how about we roast wienies on the fire of your past tomorrow; that is if you still want to destroy it all after you’ve had some rest.”

“Oh, I see how it is; advocating for sober second thought and all.” 

Nick nods. 

Deacon sighs; his previous anger is gone, leaving him exhausted. “Yeah, I could maybe wait until tomorrow to set it all ablaze, but it can’t stay there. Not out in the open.”

Nick drops his hand and turns to pick up the basket. Deacon doesn’t really want to let go of his coat but does for the sake of Nick’s ability to move. He looks past Nick and out into the hall. High Rise is gone; he probably knew that this was something he shouldn’t listen in on and walked away. The books are stacked in the crate again, though. He’ll have to buy HR some of that really great whiskey at The Third Rail in thanks for…well everything. 

Nick sets the basket down near the safe and moves back to lean against the desk. “Wasteland Survival Guide, huh? Don’t think I’ve ever seen that issue.”

Deacon picks up the book; it’s pretty large compared to the magazine’s that Moira now publishes. He has collected every one of them; has a standing order with one of the Capital’s caravans to bring him all the latest copies. He can hear Moira’s voice in his head every time he reads one and it usually brightens his day. Suddenly, he feels a wave of relief -he keeps the magazines in a separate box from his books. 

“It was the first. Either the best or worst depending on your view. I keep the rest in a box over there.” Deacon gestures to the far wall where all his robot parts are and puts the book back in the safe. 

“Ya know, I always wondered about the author: Moira Brown. Ellie really likes her, says Moira is both funny and intelligent, but I always thought her writing was a little…well _odd._ ”

Deacon starts laughing. “You don’t know the half of it. Half a bubble off plumb that one.”

“You from the Capital, then?”

Deacon’s laughter suddenly stops. “Nope. Just visited a few times,” he replies and sets both holotapes in the safe. He closes the door, hits the ‘Enter’ button to lock it and unplugs the fusion cell.

Nick hums, but Deacon knows he isn’t convinced. “Hell of a trek for a visit.”

“What can I say? I just _really_ wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial.”

“And how is old Honest Abe these days?”

“Well, he got his head back, so pretty good.”

Nick laughs, surprised by the answer. “Sounds like a story.”

“Maybe one day I’ll tell it.”

“I’ll be here when you do.”

That’s a promise that Deacon’s not sure he can live up to. He’s _this_ close to picking up everything and leaving because he can’t keep doing this. Playing this game with The Railroad, having near death experiences with Coursers, listening to The Wanderer tell him how to take the Commonwealth by storm. 

He could run this place if he put his mind to. The Railroad? Ha! Child’s play. He could be running this place in three months. They think Deacon is trouble? They have no idea what The Lone Wanderer is capable of. 

Next would be The Minutemen. They need a General and he would give them one. Within six months everyone from Quincy to Abernathy Farm would be saluting him as General. Yes, Sir! No, Sir! Three bags full, Sir! Not to mention all the communities that would be helped along the way, people who would owe The Minutemen their lives or livelihoods to their aid. One word and he’d have a horde of Commonwealth citizenry ready to be trained and integrated into The Minutemen. 

Once he had both The Railroad and The Minutemen resources under his command, he would take the fight to The Institute. They think they’re safe with their superior technology, synth slaves, and Coursers? Ha! They wouldn’t be the first smugly superior organization he brought to its knees with nothing more than elbow grease, a few boy scouts, and help of the people.

Those are the things that The Wanderer wants, that is _his_ plan, and _his_ timeline. Deacon just wants to live the rest of his life in obscurity and it’s starting to look less and less like that’s going to be possible in the Commonwealth.

Nick leaves the room then after Deacon tries to give him a reassuring look. However, it probably only comes off as _‘don’t count on it’_ or _‘I’m leaving, so…_ ’. Nick keeps seeing him at his worst, seeing him when all the masks are down and he’s having a personal crisis; worst still, he’s seen The Wanderer. He now knows Deacon’s from the Capital, so how long before he pieces it together? 

He’s starting to think that task in Diamond City will be the last thing he does for The Railroad, the last thing he does in the Commonwealth. Deacon will probably keep moving north after it’s done. Montréal doesn’t sound so bad, plus he’s always wanted to learn French. 

He finishes getting ready for bed -minus any more freak outs, and is asleep before his head hits the pillow.

\- - - - -

A surprised yelp jolts Deacon out of sleep the next day. His heart races for a second as he tries to get his bearings, this place isn’t immediately familiar. In the low light streaming in from the door, Deacon can see Nick lounging in the desk chair in front of a desk, feet resting on an overturned trashcan, a mess of papers in his lap and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. There’s a moment of confusion at that sight, then Deacon sees the boxes of robot and synth parts behind him and the pieces fall back into place. 

Ticonderoga.

“They’ve been doin’ that all morning," Nick murmurs as he flips a page over. "Surprised it hasn’t woken you before now.” 

Deacon groans and buries himself deeper into the flimsy covers. “What time is it?” His voice is a gravelly rasp; utterly foreign to his ears.

“1:12 p.m., Friday, May 16, 2284. Just in case you were wondering about the day as well.”

“Thanks.” It’s always good to know that he hasn’t lost another two weeks to a near death experience. “How’s Drummer Boy?”

Nick taps the ash off the end of his cigarette. He’s gotten an ashtray from somewhere. “Alive, but weak. They moved him into his room early this morning.”

“And J8?”

Nick pulls his gaze way from the papers in front of him and looks at Deacon, a smirk curling his lips. “She’s the reason they’re all yelpin’ down there.”

“Do I want to know?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Not even a hint? Cruel, Valentine. Very cruel.”

Nick just continues to smirk and goes back to reading. Deacon snuggles into his pillow, not wanting to get up and face the day. He draws a deep breath in for a yawn, but it turns into a cough. He coughs long enough that Nick sets aside his papers and is staring at him intently. It settles after a few moments more, but now his throat aches and it has brought on the beginnings of a headache, so he should probably get up, take another stimpak and get some food so his body has the energy to deal with said stimpak.

After which he can pester Parade for a Mentat.

Deacon throws back the covers with a small sigh and swings his legs out of bed. He roots around in one of the boxes he left and pulls out a pair of sandals that have seen better days -the stuff he left at Ticon were basically the dregs of his clothing, all the best stuff went with him to the Switchboard- and pulls them on. He finds his tool belt and weapons hanging off one corner of the stacked filing cabinet drawers. His other clothing is gone, though.

Uncle probably took them for washing.

Nick watches him as he injects the stimpak into his arm and then tucks the spent needle away. Deacon leans over, to look at what Nick’s reading, as he gives the stim a moment to work before he chances the stairs. It’s his notes from the board. The ones that detail all his observations on synths and RobCo robots. 

“Not exactly light readin’ there,” Deacon says, voice much stronger than before, but still rough and weird.

“But interesting. Kept me entertained most of the night, what between tryin’ to figure out your handwritin’ and tryin’ to understand the mechanics of it all. I take for granted that this body just works without understanding how.”

“Join the club. You think we understand our bodies? That’s why I go to Sun. It’s why you’re comin’ to me.” Deacon claps Nick on the shoulder. “Let me go get some fuel and maybe some Mentats, and I’ll start tacklin’ your busted arm. Join me downstairs?”

Nick smirks and puts the papers aside. “Oh yeah, this I gotta see.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow but Nick won’t elaborate further than that. 

Downstairs, there is the wonderful smell of coffee. High Rise and Parade are sitting at the kitchen table. HR is finishing his breakfast: a well-balanced meal of Sugar Bombs and coffee. Parade is cradling a cup herself as she fills High Rise in on Drummer. Uncle, J8, and the agent he doesn’t know are in the common area; Uncle is showing J8 how to take apart and maintain her newly acquired assault rifle while the other agent watches. 

There is a chorus of “Afternoon, Dee,” and “Hey, Deacon,” as he makes his way into the kitchen. He calls back cheerfully and pats High Rise on the back as he goes by in search of coffee. He picks up the Luxobrew pot and finds enough left for a couple cups. Then, he snatches the Sugar Bomb box off the table and pours himself a bowl as well. 

“There better be brahmin milk left,” Deacon warns good-naturedly. 

He gets a few sniggered, “Yeah,”’s in response. He gives the assembled agents a narrow look. They’re being weird all of a sudden. Nick settles himself against the desk near the window opposite and Deacon throws him a questioning look. Nick just waves him on. Still wondering what is with everyone, Deacon opens the fridge door. 

Huh. Now’s there something you don’t see every day.

Deacon turn back to the agents, hand hanging on to the door. “Is there a reason why the Courser’s severed head is sitting in here next to the Nuka Colas?”

There’s a collective groaning and swearing as Nick starts laughing. 

“Pay up, folks,” he says. 

Okay, he’s really missed something good this morning.

Everyone starts digging out caps from their pockets, save for J8 and the new agent, and they make their way to deposit the caps in the pocket of Nick’s trench coat. 

“Is this what it looks like? Gambling in the sacred halls of Ticonderoga?” Deacon asks with a smirk. He pulls out the brahmin milk and closes the fridge’s door. He pours some for his cereal and then a dash in his coffee before he puts the milk away. 

“How is it this guy know you better than us, Dee?” Parade asks with a huff as she sits down again. “We were sure you’d freak at the sight of that thing in there. Shit, we all have.”

He grabs some dried brahmin meat from an old coffee can to offset the ridicules amount of sugar he’s about to consume and sits down at the kitchen table. 

“Yeah, there was some pretty unmanly screaming from me this…ah afternoon,” High Rise says with a laugh. 

“Oh, so that’s what woke me up. I thought it was a banshee or something.”

HR punches his arm.

Deacon looks at Parade. “And hey, what can I say? Nick’s a detective; kinda his job to see the things that most people don’t. Ya know, read between the lines, make accurate character sketches.” Deacon digs into his breakfast. Man, it’s been ages since he had Sugar Bombs last. “Seriously, though, why isn’t that thing at least in a pot or something? Or better yet, why the hell is it in there in the first place?”

“Ask J8,” High Rise says and jabs a thumb behind him. “She kept it for you.”

Deacon pauses mid-bite. “Uh, what?”

“Well, you seem to have some knowledge of synths and their designs,” J8 says as she sits at the table. “And Courser’s have a chip in their heads with all kinds of Institute information on it. Just think of what you could learn if you could crack into it.”

“Did we know this?” Deacon asks HR.

He shrugs. “Maybe. Tinker would probably know for sure. I figure any Courser we have managed to kill in the last ten to fifteen years probably received some major head trauma, if you catch my drift, making any chip unsalvageable.”

“What exactly did you mean by, ‘if you could crack it’?” Nick asks from his perch. 

“It’s got a lock on it. Encrypted to the highest Institute levels,” J8 says.

“All synths do,” Deacon elaborates. “When they come to the surface, come to us, we can’t get anything about the Institute from them. They are literally unable to speak of the place. It’s a great safeguard from their point of view, but not so good for us.”

“Don’t think we haven’t tried,” High Rise continues, “Shit, Glory’s probably volunteered half-a-dozen times to go through some crazy procedure that Tinker cooks up, but no luck.”

“Look, J8, could you maybe find a pot to put that thing in so it isn’t freaking everyone out when they open the fridge door?” Deacon says and J8 gives a sheepish nod. “I’ll see about performing a synth post-mortem after I’ve put Nick back together. You’ll have to get it to HQ though.” Deacon points his spoon at High Rise. “They don’t let me hang around there anymore.”

There’s collective angry grumble that rolls through the room. 

“Are you gonna tell him, HR, or what?” Uncle says from the far side of the room. 

“Not right now, I wasn’t,” High Rise replies. “In case you haven’t noticed, we got a non-agent hanging out in our house right now. Valentine, no offence, but we can’t just go airin’ every bit of business we got with a stranger.”

“No offence taken,” Nick rumbles.

Deacon finishes the last of his coffee and brahmin jerky and stands. “Well, Nick let’s get this started. These guys might explode if they have to keep this secret from me any longer.” He takes his dishes to the sink, grabs the last cup of coffee, and crooks a finger at Parade. “Got a couple Mentats I can have?”

She grins. “You know it.” 

Parade pulls a tin of Mentats out and shakes a few into his hand. Deacon takes one and chews it; the rest he jiggles in his hand to prevent them from melting.

The outer shell of a Mentat is a red, hard, candy-like coating with a soft, slightly minty center. He’s never particularly cared for the taste of Mentats, so he takes a swig of coffee to try and rid the taste from his mouth, but coffee and mint don’t really go together well in his opinion. Ugh. 

As Nick and he take the stairs, the Mentat kicks in. His vision sharpens and colours get brighter. The lingering headache the stim wasn't able to take care of disappears as he feels a precise clarity settle over his mind. The effect usually last a few hours -less if you form a dependency on them, but Deacon doesn’t use Mentats often and hasn’t used them in great quantity since he was studying for tests in the vault. 

Deacon flips the light switch and sets down the few Mentats that Parade gave him and his coffee on top of his safe. He picks at his t-shirt, wondering if he has something else to wear. Deacon will probably be here another day and he’d hate to get metal shavings and grease all over his makeshift pajamas. He quickly crouches and digs through the box until he finds his patched coveralls. Perfect.

As he steps into the coveralls, Nick settles himself back on Deacon’s desk, shoving the chair out the door with a careful kick. Deacon picks up his notes once he’s got his coveralls zipped up and shuffles through them until he hits his synth notes. He scans through them quickly, then tosses the whole bundle onto the bed. 

When he steps up to the desk, Nick hands him the ashtray and Deacon sets it down on top of the safe. Deacon helps Nick slide out of the trench coat, then unbuckles the belts. 

“So, Gen 2’s outer panels have the ability to detach for maintenance purposes. I see seams in your skin, but it’s much more malleable than a normal Gen 2. Does it detach as well?”

Nick smirks and raises an eyebrow. “What? You’re not even going to buy me dinner, kid?”

“Pray tell, what sort of dinner does one buy for a guy that doesn’t eat?”

“Could always do with a carton of cigarettes.”

“And take perfectly smokeable cigarettes away from those people out there that actually get a nicotine high from them?”

Nick taps his temple, much like Deacon did last night. “Helps me think.”

“You’re a regular Holmes, huh? Three pipe problem and everything.”

“Well, minus the cocaine habit.”

Deacon starts to dig through the desk drawers, pulling out tools he thinks he might need. “I’m sure I could whip up a 7% solution of like plasma energy and fusion cores if you really want.”

“I’m good, thanks. Besides, Doctor Watson was always tryin’ to get Holmes to kick the habit, not help him form one.” 

“Aw, I’m the Watson to your Holmes. I’m flattered, Valentine. But you better be careful with your praise, I might start doodling hearts on all your case files.”

“And that’s different from last time, how?”

Deacon bursts into laughter. Not many people out there with a quick enough wit to catch Deacon off guard and make him genuinely laugh before he makes them. Nick is definitely at the top of that list. Piper, Ellie, and High Rise are on there somewhere too, though with less frequency.

Nick reaches across his torso and gestures to a spot under his damaged arm. “There’s a slight depression under there. Press that and it will allow half of my chest and back pieces to be removed. Should give you a better view.”

Deacon lifts Nick’s damaged arm and searches for the depression that Nick spoke of. He finds it sitting along the seam that started near Nick’s sternum, runs down the center of his chest and brakes off into two along the line of his ribs as it circles around behind. Deacon presses the against the circular depression and the synthetic skin of Nick’s chest and back hardens and pops out about half an inch. Grasping the right chest panel, Deacon lifts up slightly -knowing that this is how you detach Gen 2s panels, and the section comes free of a horseshoe shaped latch. 

Well, now he has a spectacular view of a section of the undamaged sensor mesh, but that’s still blocking his view of Nick’s skeleton and wiring. Deacon peers closely at the mesh, trying to understand how it's woven together. He notices that there is a solid strip of copper that runs along the same section that the seam for the synthetic skin did. 

“Can I take the sensor mesh off as well?” Deacon asks, fingers hovering above the mesh. He slightly wary of touching it.

“It doesn’t come off, but I can retract it. Though, all my upper torso panels have to be removed for that.”

“Okay.” Deacon moves to Nick’s left side and presses the other circular depression so he can start removing the left panels. 

Once he has both chest pieces off, he has Nick stand and cradle the damaged arm so he can get to the back panels. The left one comes off easily, but the right one is stuck. Deacon tries to lift it off, but something is catching near Nick’s damaged shoulder and it won’t come free.

Deacon shifts to Nick’s right side and peers between the panel and mesh, trying to spot the trouble area. He hooks his fingers back under the panel and shifts it around, hoping that might give him a better indication of what is stopping it. Ah, he sees it. The latch closest to the damaged shoulder has been bent. 

Now how to unbend it enough to get the panel free? He’s hesitant to use a pair of pliers or screwdriver because of the mesh. While it’s flexible and strong as a whole, a single point of puncture will undoubtedly cause a great deal of pain for Nick. He can lift the panel up to about an inch off of Nick’s back before the latch hits its zenith, so maybe he can bend it with his fingers just enough to maneuver the panel free and then properly shape it with a pair of pliers after. 

Deacon quickly explains the situation to Nick. 

“Basically, what I’m saying here is, I’m probably going to touch the mesh and I don’t want you to jump away in pain. Just hold still, okay?”

Nick nods and Deacon slides his hand under the panel, brushing his fingers along the mesh until he feels the latch. Nick goes completely still under him and Deacon curses to himself. He’s got to do this quickly, but as he grasps the latch, Deacon realizes that his hand is in the wrong way to properly get a hold of it. He’s having to use his left hand to go in while his right holds the panel -he shoots left-handed, so it’s not like the appendage is incapable of this level of dexterity, it’s just that his thumb is on the wrong side of his hand for this. 

Deacon retracts his hand. “Sorry, Nick,” he says, “I’ve got to try again here. Just bare with me.”

He slides his hand back in, this time with his palm up and flounders a bit before he catches the latch with his finger. Nick shakes a bit and braces a knee against the drawers of the desk on the left side. He doesn’t make a sound. Deacon pinches the latch and pulls back with the strength of his arm. He feels the latch move slightly and with his hand still under the panel, jiggles it with his right hand. It almost wants to come free. Deacon presses his left hand against the underside of the panel to better direct it and after a moment more finally gets it to come off. 

He stacks it with the other pieces on his bed a moves back to Nick. Deacon wants to touch Nick’s shoulder and ask if he’s okay, but now that the mesh it uncovered everywhere around his upper torso, it’s not the best idea. 

“I didn’t mean for that to be painful. Tried to do it as quickly as I could.”

Nick straightens. “Wasn’t exactly. Just…uh, intense.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “No? Was it only painful last time ‘cause the mesh was damaged?” 

Before Nick has a chance to reply, he carefully lays a hand on the mesh, just to the left of Nick’s spine. For, um… _science._ Nick shakes again and bows his head. Deacon gently drags his hand across the slight dip of Nick’s spin, where the copper strips that delineate the sections of the mesh meet, and up to the other side. Nick’s legs buckle and he stumbles forward into the desk -he probably would have braced himself with his hands if he could have; a low groan spills from his lips. 

Deacon stops breathing and snatches his hand. What the hell is he doing? He moves back, near the door, and listens to the rapid tick of Nick’s coolant pump, wondering what the hell possessed him. Wondering if he could get away with doing it again because Christ, _that sound._ As if he needed another reason to contemplate Nick helping him out of his pants. 

Nick straightens and Deacon watches as the mesh pops up slightly and retracts until it is rolled under Nick’s arms. Now Deacon can clearly see the metal spine and ribs of Nick’s back. Fascinated, Deacon momentarily forgets his lack of good judgment and moves forward again to better inspect Nick’s insides. 

He gently grabs Nick’s good arm and urges him to turn around so he can see better see the coolant pump, and whoa are those ventilators in place of lungs? What a clever way to help keep the coolant cool, by bringing in fresh air and expelling the hot -also explains why Nick can smoke a cigarette. The tubes of the coolant pump disappear under further down, under the skin and mesh that hasn’t been removed, but from what he can see, it looks like they coil around a nuclear fission reactor. Deacon’s fingers itch to pull it all back and study everything in great detail.

Nick’s so far from a Gen 2 it’s almost laughable. His whole frame is much more human than robot.

But that’s Nick in a nutshell, isn’t it?

Nick shifts slightly as if he’s self-conscious. “Want a picture, kid? Probably last longer.”

“Then you? I highly doubt that. God, Nick, this design, it’s _amazing,_ ” Deacon breathes and then looks up at Nick’s face. He suddenly realizes he might be a bit too close after what just happened. He steps back. “Ah, sorry. Here I am gawkin’ at your insides when I should be fixing your arm. Let me have a gander at the good one and I’ll get started.”

The other arm is still cover by Nick’s synthetic skin, but Deacon can see most of the joint and it’s wiring if he maneuvers right.

“S’okay, just not used to being looked at with fascination is all. It’s kinda strange.”

Oh good, they were going to ignore that other thing. Deacon’s just fine with that. 

He holds Nick’s damaged arm and directs Nick to rotate his good arm around so Deacon can see the joint in motion. 

“Well, as you read last night, I have a bit of an obsession with robots and synths.”

Nick smirks. “Think I just got a first-hand taste of that.”

Deacon flushes. Oh hell, so they weren’t going to ignore that. 

“Yeah…about that-”

Nick waves him off. “Forget about it. You didn’t know. Hell, you’re only the second person to see this-” he gestures to his exposed chest cavity, “-since I was tossed from the Institute.”

“Oh? And who was the first?” Deacon motions for Nick to sit back on the desk, right on the corner so he has a better angle to work on Nick’s shoulder.

“A mechanic in this little town I came across after gettin’ in a nasty fight with some raiders. They were kind to me; the first people I had really met in the Commonwealth that didn’t treat me with outright suspicion or try to shoot me for salvage.” Nick laughs as if recalling a memory. “That was before they started puttin’ out those synths that are virtually indistinguishable from humans, so there wasn’t the outright fear there is now. He fixed me up, free of charge.”

Deacon smiles. “Kindness begets kindness. Love hearing that people still practice that.” He angles Nick’s right arm, “Brace yourself.” Then, Deacon shoves the ball of the joint back into the socket with a _pop_. He moves the arm from side to side before he lets go. Good, it’s holding its own weight. He starts poking around, making sure there aren’t any stress fractures that might make this arm weaker than the other.

Nick sighs. “I believe that’s true, just wish more people did. That place doesn’t exist anymore. Raiders… wiped it out.”

Deacon pauses in his work. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

“Yeah, me too.”

He resumes poking around sparing a quick glance at his safe. 

_‘…There are, of course, the raiders: those anarchistic ruffians who roam the wastes, preying on any and all, stealing, murdering...’_

Well, he doesn’t see any problems. The Courser must have torn the arm out at the right angle to prevent serious damage to the joint. Now he just has to reattach the two groups of wires and Nick will have full mobility. The mesh is another thing entirely, however.

“You made a decision about that stuff?” Nick asks. He clearly caught Deacon looking the safe.

“No.” Deacon sighs, annoyed. “I still kinda want it burnt to a crisp, but in the cold light of day, I also don’t want to loose it. You’re right, I kept it for a reason.”

Deacon picks up his wire strippers and starts cutting back the plastic casing. There’s a black outer shell that encases a group of smaller wires. He cuts it back the furthest so he can clearly see the colours of the other shells. Should be easy to just match the colours and bam! working arm. 

He’s still not sure what to do about the twisted metal clavicle, though. It’s this flat piece of metal that is bolted to the top of the shoulder socket with a Y-bar, about half way back to the sternum, it is welded to the housing of a simple piston that is then bolted to Nick’s sternum. Allowing for flexibility and adding extra stability to the joint. Maybe he can remove it and pound it back into shape.

“Kinda surprised you were willing to burn that one holotape after the reaction you had when you thought it was taken from you.”

“Well, you did technically take it from me, so…”

“Ellie removed it from your pocket so it wouldn’t get destroyed by bein’ washed.” The tone Nick uses here implies _‘You ungrateful little shit,’_ quite clearly. “I’d’ve put it back if I’d known you’d react like that.”

Deacon starts twisting the bare ends of the wires together. “Yeah, sorry about being a complete asshole about that. I’m afraid I’m not quite sane when it comes to that holotape.”

Nick huffs a breath of laughter. “Not sure you’re ever sane, kid, but I kinda like your crazy. Though, I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s so important on it that it dictates that sort of reaction.”

“Well, it’s either the Wasteland’s salvation or its utter destruction. Ow!” Deacon jerks back and shakes his hand. He got an electrical shock. “Haven’t quite decided which.”

Nick looks at Deacon for a long time, trying to parse the truth of that statement. Finally, he says, “That’s a helluva responsibility to be carryin’ around in your pocket.”

“Sure is.” Deacon twists the last of the wires together. “There. Give that a go.”

Nick lifts and flexes the arm, taking special care to move his hand and make sure he has full mobility again. He even spins the hand around 360 degrees for the full effect. Deacon directs him to stretch his arm fully upward, but he can’t quite manage to get it straight up and down. The twisted clavicle piece is preventing full motion. 

“Let me take that off; maybe I can pound it back into shape,” Deacon says as he wraps electrical tape around each individual wire and then the whole.

Deacon starts digging around for his socket wrench pieces. When comes up with a handful, he tests a few to find the right size -the bolts are fairly small, and now that Deacon gets looking at it, it doesn’t seem like the Courser did this. The stressed area of the steel is slightly tarnished like it’s has been like that for a while. Deacon tries to recall any times when he saw Nick favouring this arm in some way, but can’t think of any. Maybe he’s just learned to live with it. 

Nick sits with his hands in his lap and watches Deacon work. 

“Why you?” Nick asks. 

“Uh, why me what?”

“Why do _you_ carry the Wasteland’s salvation or destruction in the pocket of your goddamn jeans?”

Oh, still on that. Okay.

Deacon starts on the small Y-bar. “Where should I keep it? On a chain around my neck?”

Nick raises an unimpressed eyebrow. Deacon looks away with a sigh. Why does he have to pry into every single little thing? Worse yet, why does Deacon want to tell him everything?

“A…acquaintance asked me to keep it safe,” Deacon hedges. He puts the small nuts and bolts in his the pocket of his coveralls.

“Someone gave you the ability to destroy or save the Wastes?”

“Pretty much, yeah. That so hard to believe?”

“No. I’d trust you with it. Not Deacon, though. And not Rhett either. But you, kid. The you, you seem to be runnin’ from. The you that these people here follow. The you that I saw the day we found Barbra Long.”

Deacon’s hands still momentarily. There he is, ladies and gentlemen, The Lone Wanderer. He was starting to wonder when Nick would bring that up. Deacon starts working again, eyes fixed on his task, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“There’s a reason I wanted to burn that life. Whatever you think of it, of me, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

“It never is, kid. Look, I know I’m pryin’ here, so if you want to know something about me, I’ll answer whatever questions you got.”

Deacon removes the clavicle piece and shows it to Nick. It’s twisted and bent, but as he compares it to the other one, Deacon sees that it’s not a complete loss. A heavy hammer and a few good whacks should get it more or less back into shape. There isn’t a forge here, so he can’t fine tune it, but perhaps when they return to Diamond City, Deacon can visit the Science Center and shape it properly.

“Oh Nick, I fear you’ve opened a cornucopia of questions. I am an inherently curious person; snoopy you might say.”

Nick smirks. “That why you and Piper get along so well?”

Deacon feels better now that the conversation has moved away from him, away from The Wanderer. He gestures for Nick to follow him into the armoury. There’s a work bench in there that has an anvil for pounding metal.

“I like Piper because she’s well-read and clever; we can trade snarky witticisms all day, but I never tell secrets. Unless I was specifically sent to get them.”

Nick carefully crosses his arms as he leans against a table full of ammo cases. “See why you’re a spy, kid.”

“Hey, you figured it out! 50 points for my organization.” Deacon tests a couple hammer’s weights, trying to find one that he can swing the most effectively.

Nick snorts. “The Railroad. Your friend, High Rise, gave that one way the moment he named J8. I had my suspicions all along, but wasn’t completely sure you weren’t with someone else.”

Deacon grabs a pair of tongs to hold the clavicle with and starts with a couple of hammer strikes to see if he’s getting the effect he wants. Then he settles in and pounds the clavicle back into shape. 

After a few minutes, he holds it up to Nick’s left clavicle to see how he’s doing and his brain filters through the last thing that Nick said. “Wait, you thought I was with The Institute?”

“It had crossed my mind. You’re too well-educated for your average Waster, kid.”

Deacon switches to a lighter hammer for more delicate touch. He compares the two again and finds his work satisfactory, if not perfect, and they head back into Deacon’s room so he can put Nick back together again (he’s a much better smith than all the king’s men).

“There are a few places to get the kind of education I have. Not many, but a few. The Institute may be on that list, but-” Deacon suddenly laughs. “We’ve been thinking the same thing about each other Nick; it’s kinda funny.”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “You thought I was with The Institute, too?”

“Not with them, per say, but I had wondered, _I do_ wonder if they have some sort of hold on or control over you that they could exercise whenever it fit their agenda.”

Nick hops onto the desk and Deacon has him hold the clavicle in place while he starts with the Y-bar.

“Been almost 60 years since I last seen those bastards, I doubt they care I’m still kickin’.”

“If I was with them, I would be very interested in the synth that got an entire city to trust him, hell the whole Commonwealth. If they don’t exploit that, then they are either foolish, or their goals are more terrible than I can even imagine.”

“What do you think The Institute wants, kid?”

Deacon shrugs. “Power.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Sure, we all want a measure of power. It’s different strokes for different folks because power means something different to everyone, but the way I see it, power falls into three categories: money, belief, and ego.” 

Deacon loosely tightens the bolts before he moves on to the sternum connection. Once he’s sure the clavicle is straight he’ll tighten everything properly.

“So which one is The Institute?”

“Well I don’t have my crystal ball with me, but if I had to guess…ego. There’s a special kind of hubris shown by a group that makes machines that are human in pretty much every aspect, but refuses to acknowledge that such a creation could have gained humanity.”

“What do you consider humanity?”

Deacon gives Nick a funny look. “Are we playing a game of twenty questions? Did I miss my invite again?”

Nick’s eyes flick to his. “It’s important, kid. I want to know what you think.” 

“How do you even put such a thing into words?” Deacon pauses for a moment to think. “It’s more than just life because you could argue that a protectron or Gen 1 synth have life because they have power cores that provide electricity-” 

Deacon suddenly thinks of Eden; he’s a perfect example of both sides. 

He debates talking about Eden, but no one, save himself and Autumn, ever knew that Eden was a computer, to begin with. As long as he doesn’t name Eden, talking about some A.I. he once knew is probably safe ground. Even The Outcasts never realized what Eden was, despite picking through the wreckage of Raven Rock. Of course, Deacon had made sure of that. 

Deacon begins tightening all the bolts as he talks. “I once met this A.I. He was a ZAX computer -I don’t know if you know what those are, but they were these massive pre-war supercomputers that were meant to process and learn from large amounts of data. This particular computer was in a military base and had slowly gained awareness in the years following the Great War. Now, I don’t consider simple sapience to be indicative of humanity, because raiders, slavers, Gunners, The Institute, general Wasteland assholes, all have sapience, but a startling lack of humanity.”

Deacon steps back and tests the clavicles connection, making sure its stable and tight. Then he tells Nick to test his range of motion now. It’s back to normal. Perfect. Nick gives him an approving nod. 

“Re-engage the mesh and see if it causes any pain with the same movement. Promise to keep my hands to myself this time,” Deacon says with a grin.

Nick unfurls the mesh and it closes over his exposed chest and back like a great ocean wave rolling onto the shore. As promised, Deacon keeps well back as Nick tests the range of his right arm. 

“Those shredded pieces are catching against each other,” Nick says. “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s ripplin’ through the rest of the mesh and causin’ a strange sensation.”

“Do you want me to try and weave them back together?”

Nick shrugs. “Why bother? The most important place to feel sensation is in my hand, and I haven’t been able to feel anything with it for decades. There’s still feeling in the majority of my chest, so just cut the mesh back and keep the sensor nodule as a keepsake.”

“Yeah, like I want a reminder that a Courser almost ripped you apart,” Deacon replies and grabs a small pair of metal snips. 

“Not even for your robot collection?” Nick gestures to his stacked boxes.

“Well, when you put it like that…” He carefully clips the mesh back, consciously staying as far away from the exposed chest mesh as possible.

“So what happened with that A.I. you knew? Still around?”

Deacon hesitates for a moment on the answer and buys time by having Nick lift his arm so he can get at all the snarled pieces.

“…No, he’s not. It happened like this: When I met him, I was utterly fascinated with him -as I’m sure you can imagine-" Nick chuckles a bit here. "-He may have gained sapience through time, but what I believe was his true humanity was that he craved knowledge and understanding. He had these databases of American history and he poured over them. He wanted to learn, he wanted to be more than just a computer that ran a military base, looked after the primitive robots, was a repository for data, and processed calculations. He strove to be more than what he was designed to be and that is a large part of humanity.”

Deacon gestures for Nick to try moving again. Backward and forward, up and down, side to side, and every degree in between. 

“That’s good. Don’t feel anything now.”

“I’ll start puttin’ your skin back on then -and that sounded weird, didn’t it?”

Nick chuckles and waves him away. “So, wanting to be more than what you are is part of humanity, but not all of it?”

Deacon grabs Nick’s back panels. _Oh shit._ He didn’t fix that bent latch. 

“Yeah. The other part, arguably the more important part, is where you strive not only for your own betterment but for that of those around you.” Deacon sets the panel on the desk and grabs a pair of pillars. “I forgot to do this when the mesh was back, but I’ve got to bend that one latch back into place. Forgive me if I get handsy.”

Nick raises an eyebrow and smirks. “Forgot, huh? Sure, kid. You keep telling yourself that. I’m startin’ to think you got it bad for this old synth.”

Deacon stutters to a stop, pliers hanging in one hand. His brain has fritzed out, despite the Mentat still flowing strongly in his blood. Nick seems to take pity on him, despite the wicked smirk still on his face and turns around so Deacon can adjust the latch.

Deacon stares at the expanse of Nick’s mesh covered back, suddenly aware of the level of trust Nick has afforded him in this repair. He could leave Nick screaming in agony if he wanted; the pliers he’s holding could do a lot of damage. However, Nick trusts Deacon to be careful and, more importantly, to be conscious of the level of power he’s holding while he’s got Nick open and exposed. He has no idea how much Deacon needed that from him after everything that’s happened over the last year.

“Need to plead the fifth, kid?” Nick’s voice brings him abruptly back. 

Deacon lifts the pliers and grasps the latch. “Don’t I always?”

Nick hums in agreement. “So, this ZAX A.I. you were talkin’ about, he lacked that second part? The striving for the betterment of others?”

“Sort of. He wanted betterment for others, yes, but it was all wrapped up in this supremacist bent that meant betterment only for a select few. Ghouls, super mutants, and even regular people were not on the accepted list.”

“We could do with less ferals and mutants.”

“Agreed, but the means by which this was to be obtained was not something I could agree with.” Deacon checks the latch against the other one. He thinks it's pretty straight considering. He grabs the right back panel. “I’m all for getting rid of the things that go ‘bump’ in the night: the people and creatures that have no problems wiping out entire families and settlements, but regular people -humans, ghouls, the few super mutants that are peaceful creatures- they are not acceptable collateral damage. We, uh, _disagreed_ on that.”

Nick huffs a breath of laughter as Deacon picks up the left back panel. “Somehow I doubt it was that cordial.”

“Hey, I don’t go all ‘Silver Shroud’ on everyone I have a problem with. We parted amicably. Sort of.” 

Deacon can’t really explain the level of disappointment that meeting held. He was sick with it when Eden finally let him go. All that time wandering the Capital, listening to Eden talk about a better tomorrow while The Brotherhood kept their aloof attitude toward the Wastes -he had built this idea about Eden in his mind.

Twenty years Lyons said he searched for the origin point of the super mutants and Deacon found it after six months in the Wastes. Most of which he spent looking for his father and helping the people. The Brotherhood was useless. The Outcasts doubly so. But The Enclave had seemed like an organization that wanted to help and had the technology and knowledge to do so. Except, in the end, they were worse than The Brotherhood. 

That disappointment was probably what drove him to check on Raven Rock after waking up in The Citadel medbay. He just refused to believe that after all the promise he assigned to them, _to Eden_ , it had ended so poorly.

“You didn’t kill him, then.”

“Far from it.”

Deacon grabs the last two panels from his bed and makes short work of re-attaching them. 

“Ta-da!” Deacon says as he shoves the last one into place and they all reseal themselves around Nick’s sensor mesh. 

“Thanks, kid. The Institute themselves probably couldn’t have done as good a job.”

“I know, right? Just think of what I could do with access to their tech. It’d be a robot revolution!”

Nick slides into his trench coat and picks up his belt from the desk. “Vive la revolución.”

Deacon grins. 

“Well, I suppose I should go chop that Courser apart before my Mentat runs out.” He stretches, pulling his arms high above his head. “Maybe they’ll let me in on whatever big secret they’re just dying to tell me.”

“I should make myself scarce then,” Nick says as he shoves his tie into his coat pocket and buttons the trench closed. 

“There’s a patio High Rise set up on the roof. I never go up there personally, but everyone else likes it.”

Nick gives him a knowing smirk. “Of course, you don’t. Is it the height or the rickety pre-war building that you don’t like?”

“Both. Seriously, though, how were people before the war okay with being so high off the ground?”

Nick grabs his hat and they exit Deacon’s room. He flicks the switch off as he goes.

“Well considering that most of these buildings have stood for 200+ years and survived the shockwave of a nuclear blast, they must have been pretty solid back in the day, don’t ya think?”

“You tell me, Nick. You once said you were around before the war.”

“I was, sort of, but don’t you got surgery to perform? We can talk more about it later.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll just go bloody my hands, nothin’ new there.” They head down the stairs. “The patio ladder is over on the other side of the stairs, in the room over there. I’ll send someone to get you when we’re done. You know I’d do it myself, but…”

Nick smiles and claps him on the shoulder. “When you’re done playin’ doctor, I’ll help you look over the maintenance of this place. We can leave tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

\- - - - -

Deacon isn’t squeamish. Kind of hard to be when you employ a knife as one of your main methods of killing Wastelander assholes. 

He used to be, though. It was one of the reasons he didn’t become a doctor like James. He couldn’t stand the idea of cutting people up, but anatomy was a fleeting interest when he was in his early teens. He liked learning about how and why the body just kept chugging along, how the muscles and bones worked together, how the brain sent electrical signals to make things move -either consciously or unconsciously. It was interesting, and he believes, a precursor to his ultimate interest in robots. 

Also, _really_ helpful when trying to kill someone. Not what James had intended when he scrounged up some anatomy holotapes for Deacon to read along with a few copies of _‘D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine’_ , but hey, it helped keep Deacon alive. His dad’s got to be thankful for that. 

So, he isn’t disgusted when he has to carefully crack open the skull of the Courser to find the chip that no one can describe nor knows where exactly he needs to look. 

High Rise has to leave the room, though. He likes his enemies burnt to an ashy crisp by his laser rifle and has never cared for the level of blood Deacon sometimes finds himself in. J8 can’t watch either, but that’s understandable considering who this Courser was to her -people do crazy things in anger, as he can attest to, so he’s not holding the head chopping thing against her. 

Uncle and the new agent, Callie -they’ve finally been introduced, keep their distance from the kitchen where Deacon has his makeshift autopsy room set up, but they don’t actually leave. There’s a slight morbid curiosity there, but one that isn’t sure whether or not it will barf at the sight of brains. As long as they keep the dry heaving at a minimum, they can watch. 

Parade is the only one who seems eager for a little slicing and dicing. She’s standing at the other side of the table, smoking a cigarette even as she chews on a Mentat. Her fingers are beating a rapid staccato on the table and after Deacon manages to pull the back of the skull off (he figures the best place for a chip is somewhere along the brain stem, that’s where he’d put one anyways) her quick fingers are snatching the metal skull piece from his hands before he can even contemplate putting it down. 

He raises an eyebrow at her impatience, but she’s too busy studying the piece to bother looking at him so Deacon goes back to it. 

The chip turns out to be a large, bulbous piece of tech that serves as the Courser’s cerebellum. Not really what he'd call a chip, because that invokes imagines of tiny pieces of plastic and circuitry, more like a...weird metal light bulb. 

The mix of technology and organic matter in the Courser’s brain is quite interesting and Deacon picks it all apart to sate his curiosity. Coursers have long been touted as the most advanced version of a Gen 3 (though they lack the emotional programming that the standard Gen 3s seem to have) and he wishes he had a standard Gen 3 to compare it to. 

The circuitry for the cerebellum lightbulb chip-thing runs throughout the brain and he wonders if a significant electrical shock could effectively short the lightbulb out, rendering the Courser insensate. A standard pulse grenade wouldn’t be effective, but perhaps something along the lines of a defibrillator shock. Maybe he could combine the two?

“You done poking around, yet?” Parade asks as she rolls the chip in the palm of her hand, completely ignoring the blood smearing in her palm. 

“Why? You wanna poke some?”

“Hell ya, I do. I mean, I may know shit about this kinda tech, but how many people can say they’ve dug around inside a Courser's head?”

“Out here? Not many.” Deacon steps back and hands her the knife he’d been using. “I’m done, be my guest.”

She snatches it out of his hand. “This is so cool; thanks, Dee.”

Deacon nods and heads to the bathroom to wash up and grab some soapy water to clean the table up with once Parade has had her fill. Like Nick’s detective agency, Ticonderoga has a gravity water feed from the roof where rain water and snow are collected. The water only feeds into the washroom -a large public affair- where it is used for the toilet, sink and to fill a large 55-gallon drum that’s been cut in half and set on a pair of legs to serve as Ticon’s bath tub. Water is also collected from here and put into the makeshift purifier -for that delicious radiation-free taste!

Once he’s scrubbed the blood out from under his fingernails, Deacon returns with the soapy water. He washes the blood off the chip and sets it aside. Then, he starts chucking all the various pieces of the Courser’s head and brain matter that has been spread around the table back into the pot. They’ll have to go toss it in the river before it gets dark. He watches Parade poke around for a few minutes, then he picks up the head and places it in the pot as well. She throws him a frown, but chucks the knife in the soapy water and scrubs her hands. 

Once everything is cleaned up, and Deacon’s given Parade the Courser’s lightbulb chip to hold to brighten her frowny face, he asks Uncle and Callie to go get High Rise and J8 so they can have the talk they’ve all been dying to have since Deacon returned to Ticonderoga. 

Parade drags Drummer Boy out into the common room and Deacon is pleased to see that the kid is looking much better than he did last night. He gives Deacon a small smile as Parade directs him to on one of the couches. 

Deacon sits on the one couch in the common area that is the furthest from the windows and props his feet on the edge of the square planter. For the longest time, there was a dead shrub of some sort in it that they used to hang baubles on that they found out in the Wastes. Now it’s a blooming hub flower and it’s quite pretty. He brushes one of the grey-green leaves with the edge of his sandal. 

“Who did this?” Deacon asks Parade as she lights another cigarette.

“Callie. She’s got some kinda green thumb; she had this garden on the roof last year that was huge. It was like something outta the Old-World. She gearing up for another one now, and we’re all super excited.”

Deacon nods. The greater independence a safehouse has, the better. 

The rest of the safehouse agents pile into the common room, High Rise spares Deacon a grin when he sees he’s picked the couch the furthest from the windows. They all share the couches around the hub flower, but no one sits with Deacon. He wonders what exactly that bodes for him in this conversation. 

“Where’s Valentine?” High Rise asks.

“He’s on the roof,” J8 says. “Admiring the view.”

HR nods. “How’d that repair go?”

“Was there any doubt?” Deacon asks with a grin. “There was no damage to the actual joint and once it was popped back in place all I had to do was reconnect the wiring.”

“Somehow, I doubt it was that simple,” Parade says and tosses the Courser chip to HR.

“And I heard hammering,” Uncle adds.

Deacon unzips his coveralls, because High Rise has pointed at the blood stains on them from his position across from Deacon, and ties the arms around his waist.

“There was a bent piece of metal that I had to straighten, but Nick’s all good now. So spill already, what’s this great big Railroad secret that I’ve been kept outta the loop on?”

HR rolls the Courser chip in the palm of his hand, much like Parade did when it was covered in blood. “That safehouse we were headed to last night? It’s Randolph house.”

There’s a heavy silence that descends on the assembled agents; as if saying ‘Randolph’ has evoked some sort of curse. Maybe it has.

Deacon frowns slightly. “Since when did we start recyclin' safehouse names?”

“Since Sly Nick put Mr. Timms in charge of Randolph again.”

Deacon goes very still. It’s one thing for Nick to see him lose his shit, but it’s very much another for these people to see that mask slip. 

“I think I must have misheard you. It sounded like you just said Mr. Timms is running Randolph house again and that can’t be possible because I still haven’t been cleared of the suspicion treason, so how could he have been?” Deacon speaks slowly and clearly. If he doesn’t, he might let the anger that is starting to bubble up speak for him. 

“That’s the fucked up part of this, Dee,” Parade growls. “For all intents and purposes, he has been cleared and you haven’t.”

“Yeah, and it’s pretty friggin’ clear to everyone that he should be the prime suspect for the shit that went down last year, but Sly Nick isn’t listening, or he just refuses to see the truth,” Uncle says.

“And now he’s putting more agents at risk by assigning them there,” High Rise continues. “You would not believe the shit storm that rolled through HQ when Randolph started again. That was before Glory went to University Point and she was here for a few days ranting and raving about the decision. She damn near went to Diamond City to see you.”

“Why didn’t she?” Deacon asks, voice hard.

High Rise sighs. “That was right after The U.P. Deathclaws left that cut up synth girl for Diamond City Security, and we heard from a caravaner that some crazy merc went and killed The Deathclaws for it.” HR gives him a small knowing smile. “Glory wasn’t sure you could handle even more bad news.”

At that time, he probably couldn’t have. After falling out with Nick and then to learn that The Railroad had all but condemned him, he would have just picked up and left. Fuck. He’d have been in Montréal by now. 

_‘If you were running the show, this wouldn’t have happened,’_ The Lone Wanderer whispers. _‘Stop running, you coward. Start fixing things.’_

 _‘Do you want things to happen like they did last time?’_ Deacon snarls back. _‘Fuck off.’_

“So, we’re they just gonna let me do all their work in Diamond City and then politely tell me to go fuck myself after they had a permanent agent established there?” He asks this more of himself than of the assembled agents, his tone shying closer to outright anger.

There’s silence from the group and that’s all the answer he needs. Deacon stands; he can’t sit still any longer and he paces along the back of the couch. His Mentat has dissipated somewhere during this discussion and he feels a headache coming on. 

“After everything I’ve done for The Railroad…I went to Diamond City without a fuss. I understood that I had to earn back their trust, but this...” Deacon can’t express himself beyond that without dissolving into The Wanderer, and right now, that’s not an option. 

For the first time in a long while, that scared kid speaks louder than The Lone Wanderer. He tells Deacon that he needs to find a deep dark hole to hide in. _Right now._

Deacon looks to Uncle. “Where are my things?”

“Uh…up on the line,” he says and starts to stand. Deacon’s words weren’t so much a question as they were a demand to collect them. “I’ll just go grab them…”

High Rise stands too. “What should I say to Valentine?” 

He already knows Deacon is going underground for a while -figuratively speaking, he’d probably get a laugh out of knowing that Deacon _literally_ went underground- HR understands that this is how Deacon copes with things.

Deacon pauses on the stairs. He’d forgotten about Nick. Shit. The Wanderer urges him to talk to Nick instead of running, but the kid reminds him that Nick’s already left him once, he’ll do it again given the chance. And even though The Wanderer makes a logical argument as to why that’s the _stupidest_ thing he’s ever heard, Deacon can’t even bare the thought of it happening again. Running first sounds like the best plan. Ever better, if he doesn’t actually have to face Nick.

“Whatever you want,” Deacon replies and continues up to his room.

He strips out of his coveralls and tosses them on the desk. Then, he grabs his tool belt and weapons from the stack of boxes. He hasn’t had the opportunity to properly clean his plasma pistol since using it last, but that’ll have to wait until he gets to the vault. He checks the armoury for a few plasma cells, he thinks he might have seen a couple in the same box as the fusion cells. Oh, that reminds him…

He tosses the scrounged plasma cells on the desk with his tool belt and kneels at his safe. Deacon pulls the fusion cell out of the box under the bed he’d tossed it in last night and plugs it into his safe. As he’s opening the door, Uncle appears with his clothes and Nick is right behind him. 

“On the desk,” Deacon says as he pulls the modified holotape out of the safe. 

Uncle sets his clothes on the desk, the steel plates in the vest making a muffled thunk as they hit the metal surface. Then, he spares Nick a fleeting glance and leaves the room. Deacon relocks the safe as Nick leans against the wall near the door. 

“Bad news, huh?” Nick asks. 

Deacon sets the holotape down on his bed and starts pulling his t-shirt off. “That’s puttin’ it mildly.”

“We leavin’ now, then?” Nick turns around to give Deacon privacy so he can change.

“No.”

“So, you just demanded your things for the helluva it?” 

Deacon throws on his undershirt and then yanks down his tattered sweat pants, clean underwear hanging in one hand.

“I’m leaving. You can do whatever you want, Nick.”

Deacon’s tone makes Nick’s spine straighten. He’s probably frowning.

“You’re damn right I will, and you’re not traveling anywhere alone, kid. It’s too late for that. Sun’ll set in a couple of hours and it’ll take at least that to get back to Diamond City.”

“I’m not going to Diamond City,” Deacon says as he jumps into his jeans. They’re stiff from hanging in the sun. He shoves the holotape in the pocket and pulls on his socks. 

At the sound of his zipper going up, Nick turns around. His eyes are narrowed. “Where then?”

Deacon threads his belt through his jeans as he talks. “Away. North. I can’t stay here. I can’t deal...” 

Deacon grabs his dress shirt and slides into it. He frowns as he realizes he hasn’t even had time to bathe. All Uncle’s hard work going to waste. 

Nick steps close and stills his hands as they work on the buttons. “Deal with what?”

“ _Everything._ ” 

But most immediately: almost dying and trying to cope with that fallout, and now this continuing betrayal. 

He might have been able to handle one of those things, but both together is impossible without leaning on The Lone Wanderer and he can’t do that. It’s easier to hide until he can smile and pretend to be Deacon without feeling like he’s starting to crack around the edges.

“Don’t run, kid.”

Deacon flicks his eyes up to Nick’s. It would be so easy to just start talking to Nick and never stop until either his whole story was laid bare or his voice gave out, but he knows what such a tale will provoke in Nick: “Why don’t you do something, kid?” Deacon will then have to explain why he can’t get that involved again, why won’t he survive if things go south again. He knows Nick won’t understand because The Wanderer doesn’t understand. They are very similar people, too similar for Deacon’s continued sanity. 

Maybe that’s why he’s drawn to Nick. The Wanderer is trying to force him to acknowledge all the things he keeps running from, but he can’t treat Nick like that; like some kind of crutch for Deacon’s damaged psyche. How vain is he that he’s falling for a reflection of himself? Nay, a reflection of the person he was, but no longer wants to be. He’s disgusted at himself. 

Abruptly, Deacon pulls back and finishes buttoning his shirt. He grins, pulling what’s left of his mask back around himself. “It’s what I do. You think I got these great legs by facing my problems? Mr. Valentine, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Nick frowns and crosses his arms; not bothering with a response. Deacon picks up his vest and swings the heavy garment around his shoulders. As he settles it on himself and begins buttoning it, Nick’s eyes drop to the inch-diameter, singed section of fabric over Deacon’s heart. He chooses to ignore the look on Nick’s face. 

Deacon shoves his feet into his boots and quickly laces them. Then, he grabs his tool belt and weapons. When he’s finished buckling them, he grabs the fusion cell from in front of the locked safe, kicks the boxes back under the bed and heads out -flicking the switch as he goes. 

Nick grabs his arm in the hall, making him stop.

“You comin’ back?”

He gives a bitter laugh. “Well, the Railroad hasn’t quite finished using me to establish a permanent agent in Diamond City and I hate to leave things half-finished, so yeah. I’ll be back. How long I’ll be there, is another matter entirely.”

Nick drops his arm, satisfied for the moment, but only that. He suspects High Rise is in for a little interrogation -Railroad procedures be damned. Deacon is somewhat warmed by the thought, but he shoves it away. He’s made up his mind to leave the Commonwealth once he’s established the agent in Diamond City, better to not get any more attached its resident synthetic detective than he already is. 

Deacon trots down the stairs, grabs his bomber jacket from Parade’s waiting fingers -she must have collected it from Drummer Boy-, deposits the fusion cell in her hand, and rams his fist into the elevator’s call button. 

He reaches Sanctuary Hills sometime the next morning.


	7. He's the only one for me, Jolene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _To be, or not to be: that is the question:_   
>  _Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer_   
>  _The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,_   
>  _Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,_   
>  _And by opposing end them?_   
> 
> 
> _-Hamlet (3.1.56)_

Deacon’s never actually bothered with the frozen residents of Vault 111. 

Sure, he read through the terminals that told the tale of how the scientists, maintenance, and security personnel were supposed to leave after so many weeks of imprisonment after the bombs fell. About how they were supposed to get an ‘All Clear’ signal from Vault-Tec. 

So… _that_ didn’t happen.

He’s kind of surprised it took them until they nearly ran out of food to start rebelling against the scientists. Surely the whole, ‘freezing people against their will/without their knowledge’ should have done it for some of them. Did no one have a set of morals back then? Was it just a free-for-all of ‘let’s see how much shit we can get away with’? It’s things like this that make him hate the Old-World. 

The reason he’s never bothered with the residents of Vault 111 is because that would be meddling, that would be getting involved in the fate of the Commonwealth. He promised himself he wouldn’t do that again -not that it’s been working out that well. It’s the thought that counts, though, right?

However, once he’s settled himself in the quiet of the old Overseer’s quarters, Deacon becomes restless. Right around this time, he usually throws himself a nice little pity party and thinks about all the various failures in his life that have lead up to this point. For some reason, a pity part isn’t really doing it for him this time. He’s still too angry for some good-old-fashioned wallowing. 

What’s worse, he actually cares about what’s going to happen to the Commonwealth once he’s gone. 

Not that he’s willing to be its saviour or anything (oh no, not him), but he sees the path The Railroad is careening down. He sees that The Institute only grows stronger, _bolder_ with its Coursers terrorizing the ‘Wealth and its synths scrounging for scrap. There’s going to be a big clash between the two soon enough, and he knows that the Railroad is not even close to being prepared for it. 

They’re too cocky and one of these days The Institute is going to swat them like some crawling bug that it has finally tired of.

Clearly, The Railroad isn’t listening to Deacon; they would listen to The Lone Wanderer, but that’s not an option for him. So, what’s the next best thing? Why another Vault dweller of course, because Vault dwellers have the reputation of being influential characters all across the Wastes. 

There’s him (of course), and a couple he’s heard of out on the West Coast (okay, just like _one_ , the other was a tribal, but they descended from the first, so he’ll group them together), but that was decades ago and the stories are pretty wild. There was one courier, too, more recently out in Nevada, but Deacon’s decided that’s a fluke -or they were actually a Vault dweller in disguise because come on, a _courier?_ Still, he bets that’s a hell of a story. 

(Only a few caravaners ever come this far east from that far west and Deacon’s heard a few tales about a casino that no one goes into, a man who runs it all that no one sees, and the courier that the whole Mojave trusts.)

It's the decision to find another 'Vault dweller' that leads him to find out that one: every single resident of Vault 111 is dead except for one woman, and two: that he can’t release the seal on her cryo-pod from the vault. He tries for several hours to figure out some workaround, but whoever rerouted the signal, to some unknown place outside Vault 111, had top level Vault-Tec clearance and for all his computer skills, he can’t override the system. Not without either said top-level Vault-Tec or a military clearance. Neither of which he has.

He doesn’t understand why the signal has been rerouted, but he does know that it was done nearly 60-years-ago. Long before he ever set foot in the Commonwealth. 

Deacon also discovers, that shortly before the signal was rerouted, one cryo-pod was opened for 20-some seconds and its occupant killed. Digging further, he finds that Vault-Tec had installed a safety feature wherein if cryo-stasis was forcefully deactivated, it was done so across the board and all residents would be woken at once. The pod doors, however, had to be opened on a case by case basis.

The cryo-stasis on all, but one pod, was never re-engaged. 

He feels little sick reading that; the remaining residents had suffocated in a cold coffin. There were thirty-plus people frozen in this vault and someone had just murdered them with a single keystroke. Why would anyone do that? 

What’s probably the most curious thing, is that though Deacon can’t override the pod with the single survivor in it, it is set to open in 3-years, 2-months, and 10-days …give or take a few minutes. He does some quick math on an old folder sitting next to the terminal. That’s October 23rd, 2287. 

He twirls the pencil between his fingers and stares at the screen. 3 years. Can he wait that long? Should he leave before the woman -Nora McCoy, she deserves her name- wakes into what is probably the largest shock of her life. What that would be like? Waking after 210-years and seeing the destruction wrought by your contemporaries?

Hell of a shock, right there. 

3 years, plus the 2 he’s already spent here, that’ll be 5 years total. He only spent 3 in the Capital -well, outside the vault, anyway- and look at all the trouble he caused there. The Wanderer is already quite insistent on helping the Commonwealth; what will he be like after another 3? Too loud, he’s certain. And what of The Railroad? He doesn’t really want to have anything else to do with them after Diamond City, but if he decides to stay, what else is he going to do? Join the Minutemen? That’ll make The Wanderer even more restless. 

He could just free-wheel from safehouse to safehouse, providing recon and support where ever he is needed, without spending time too long in any one place -provided The Railroad even wants him after all this bullshit. Though, they’ll have a hard time saying no to his continued services if he tells them he’s still interested in helping. He knows they’ve made huge inroads in the ‘Wealth since he joined and started using his uncanny ability to talk circles around people. He can’t take credit for all of it, but he damn well will take credit for most of it. 

Deacon may be modest, but he knows exactly what his worth is to an organization like The Railroad.

Still… _3 years._

Shit. He can’t just leave the Commonwealth to its own devices without someone to watch over it properly and the only person he would trust to look after it won’t be thawed for another 1,165 days. Someone has to keep it solvent until Nora McCoy, the sole survivor of Vault 111, wakes. Hmm, he doesn’t really care for that: _Sole Survivor._ No panache.

(There’s the classic: _The Vault Dweller_ (only the most direct for the first). Then there’s the lofty: _The Chosen One_ (that’s tribals for you). There’s his: _The Lone Wanderer_ (he did wander, like _a lot_ , but not always alone). And the outlier: _Courier Six_ (it’s best that name stays in Vegas) But _Sole Survivor_? Like Nora will want to be reminded that she was the only one who made it out. What about… _’Wealth Wanderer_? Or something more direct? Like _Old-Worlder?_ Eh, he’ll have to talk with Piper about better names.)

Anyways, he’s sort of off topic here. 

It seems as if he’s changed his mind and is going to stay in the Commonwealth. But just long enough to ensure that Nora has all the things she needs to talk the ‘Wealth by storm; then he’s gone. Well, he should be anyways, but Deacon has long since learned that things don’t ever quite work out the way you plan. 

He’s never heard of anyone being cryogenically frozen before and surviving the process; Nora’s vitals are strong according to the readout, but that could change. Power could fail. Hell, she could come out of that box a complete sociopath. Not likely, true, but the last people he met who had spent 200 years in a vault were either completely out of their minds or a monster, so he can’t discount the possibility.

Deacon shudders. This world doesn’t need another Stanislaus Braun. 

What he needs is a backup plan. An ‘In Case Shit Happens’ plan. He taps the holotape in his jean’s pocket. It could definitely be that, but once he got it up and running, there would be no turning back. No: ‘Oops, guess I don’t need you after all.’ If he used it, he’d have to either disassemble it again or destroy it for good this time because he couldn’t leave it with someone else. Not with what was stored on it. He’s not even sure _he_ can handle it properly, there’s no way anyone else could. 

So, has he decided to use the modified holotape? Deacon listens for The Lone Wanderer or the scared kid. Neither seems to have anything to say. He’s going to have to make this decision himself. He fishes the holotape out of his pocket and spins it in his hand. The whole reason he keeps it is to one day put it to use, to right the wrong that happened in the Capital Wasteland. If he did it right, maybe he wouldn’t have to disassemble it. Maybe it could be a useful tool for Nora if it wasn’t needed as a backup plan.

Yeah, Deacon could live with that. Even better, that would be one thing he could get rid of from his past. He could let go of that piece of The Lone Wanderer. 

Okay. It’s decided then. Now, he has to actually make it happen. Good thing he’s in a vault. Some of the world’s best processing power lurks in these underground tombs. Deacon only has another day of supplies, so he has to work quickly.

He spends the next 24-hours stripping the vault of all the computer power it doesn’t need. There’s only one occupant left, and the other thirty corpses don’t need the automated systems to watch over them. 

There’s a bank of computers in the lower levels that was once meant to remotely monitor the occupants of Vault 111 and transmit the data back to Vault-Tec HQ in the Capital. Most of them are dark, the systems set to standby mode now that they are no longer needed. He’s going to have to build his own computer system back at Ticonderoga -that's the best place, because even if he is unable to continue working with The Railroad, High Rise will always welcome Deacon into his home (even if it's only as Ticon’s superintendent). Also, it has lots of power. He’s going to need lots of power. 

But first, he’s going to have to haul all this stuff back to Ticonderoga. 

He can’t risk bringing a caravaner to Ticon’s doorstep because he doesn’t want the gossip of some crazy merc hiring a caravaner to haul a bunch of tech junk to a crumbling skyscraper. They have enough raider problems already. There is that Mr. Handy robot hanging around in Sanctuary Hills and while he doesn’t like the idea of being within saw blade distance of those General Atomics robots, it could be convinced to help Deacon haul this stuff back to Ticon. After which, he could wipe its short-term memory and send it on its merry way.

He would prefer an assaultron or even a sentry bot, but he is willing to take what he can get. 

Deacon scrounges up a bunch of metal Vault-Tec crates to store all his tech until he can get to Ticon. He figures eventually he’ll have all the computers from this vault at Ticonderoga, but for now, five crates of parts should do it. He finds a trolley hanging around in one of the maintenance rooms and wheels it onto the exit platform. Then, he piles the crates on it -they’re heavy sons-of-bitches and the stairs to the vault door are a serious design flaw in his opinion -and uses a section of rope to lash them down.

It’s the middle of the night by the time he is finished and Deacon crashes into bed, utterly exhausted. 

The next morning he’s starving, but he doesn’t have any food left, so he grabs a drink from the dripping tap, collects his things and heads back up to the surface. Surely, there has to some ancient Salisbury steak or Dandy Boy Apples hanging around in the ruins of that town. Maybe the robot knows where some are stashed. 

Dragging the trolley across the hardened dirt down to the town proper is easier than Deacon thought it would be, but when he comes to the remains of the small foot-bridge the task becomes more difficult. It’s still, amazingly, intact, but after two centuries of frost heaving the ground, it’s a twisted wreck. It takes a long time for Deacon to drag it across, to the point that’s he’s pretty much run out of patience and is questioning dragging this stupid cart across the Commonwealth. 

When he makes it into the town proper, Deacon rests on the rusted hull of an old Corvega and wipes the sweat from his forehead. From up the lane, further into town, Deacon can hear the Mr. Handy’s thruster firing as it approaches. He stretches his neck, lays one hand next to his plasma pistol, and prepares to put on a good-natured smile for the robot. 

“Good morning, Sir!”

“Hey there, pal. What’s shaken?”

The Mr. Handy’s optics briefly look downwards before focusing back on Deacon. “Oh, I knew something was wrong with my thruster. Is the vibration that noticeable?”

Deacon laughs, surprised. “Not what I meant, but hey, you do me a solid, I’ll do you one. I got a screwdriver here with your name on it.”

“Indeed? I would be most grateful if you took a look at it. What might I do to repay this service?”

“I am starvin’, pal. Know where I might scrounge up some food around here?”

The Handy visibly brightens. “Certainly! It’s been ages since I’ve had the opportunity for some proper domestic work. This way, Sir!”

The robot wheels around on its dodgy thruster and starts back the way it came. Deacon follows it at a safe, flamer-free distance. It leads him to a house a few doors up. When Deacon steps through the door, he finds the Handy bustling around the kitchen. The house is in pretty good condition, considering some of the wrecks in the town, and Deacon has little doubt that it is due to the robot’s care. 

“Do excuse the mess, Sir. I’m afraid since the roof started collapsing I’ve had a dashedly difficult time of keeping it clean.”

Deacon sits at the kitchen island’s only stool. “No worries. That’s the story of the Wastes.”

“Unfortunate, but true.” The Handy turns one of its optics to Deacon and holds a box of Blamco Mac and Cheese in its pincer. “Now, how do you feel about mac and cheese?”

“It’s only my second favourite dish.”

“Excellent! Just let me get the hotplate all warmed up.”

As the Mr. Handy busies itself with making Deacon some chow, he props his chin on one hand and starts whistling. The other beats time on his thigh, next to his plasma pistol. 

“Ah, now there’s a song I haven’t heard since the military broadcasts on the radio. Do they still have radio broadcasts?”

“You bet. There’s one outta Diamond City that plays all music, all the time. In fact, they’re talkin’ about getting’ a DJ for news reports too, but no one is volunteerin’ for it just yet. You got a radio in here?”

“No. It was the first thing to go after the shock wave took out the windows. That irradiated rain is quite corrosive.”

Deacon shakes his head in wonderment. To live through that...robot or not, that must have been awful. He remembers shuddering in horror as Carol in Underworld talked about people being burnt into sidewalks, steps, and buildings in the wake of a nuke’s thermal pulse. 

“Ah, radiation, you unbelievable bastard.”

“Quite.”

“So, you got a name robot? Or should I just call you Jeeves?”

The Handy turns, optics flaring. “Oh my! Do forgive my atrocious manners, I’ve been so long without human contact I seem to have completely forgotten them. I am Unit Number: DL-859614 of the Codsworth line of Mr. Handy robots.”

“You shoulda just said you were Jeeves and then I could have been Wooster. I always kinda liked the nickname, Bertie.”

“Shall I call you that anyway, Sir?”

He waves a hand. “Nah. Wouldn’t seem right. I’m Deacon.”

Codsworth tips his optics forward in a simulation of a bow. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mister Deacon.”

While Deacon’s breakfast finishes cooking, they chat. Codsworth has thousands of small-talk topics and he makes full use of them now that he has a captive audience.

_(Mr. Handy’s have a vast repository of small-talk for every occasion! Never have an awkward silence again while hosting a dinner party, afternoon tea, or that baby shower you promised for your sister -and if you forgot all about that, never fear, your Mr. Handy will have things tip-top before you say lemonade!_

_And for the mister, over two thousand jokes for every pool party, backyard BBQ, World Series game and Super Bowl weekend! You’ll surely be the center of attention with your new Mr. Handy robot._

_General Atomics: the finest in personal robots! Ting!_

_*any homicidal tendencies are not covered by the General Atomics warranty. Please see restrictions. )_

Deacon’s pretty sure that if the world burned a second time, Mr. Handy’s would cheerfully natter on about any and every pleasant subject to keep your mind off the impending doom. 

Codsworth places a cracked, but clean, bowl full of mac and cheese in front of Deacon with a flourish and a ‘Bon appétit!’. He digs in with gusto, only to pause on the second bite; this is _exactly_ how Andy used to make it. He feels a wave of nostalgia for his vault. In the Wastes, he feared he’d never come across another living soul capable of making the perfect mac and cheese. Even Wadsworth never made it like this -probably because Tinker Joe had to partially reprogram him after scrounging him up in the ruined wreck of some house downtown. 

“Oh pal, do you know how long it's been since I’ve mac and cheese this good?”

Codsworth preens under Deacon’s praise. “I’m pleased my cooking is still up to snuff, Sir.”

When he’s cleaned his bowl out, Codsworth whisks it way to the sink. Deacon directs them to the house across the street with the large carport and power armour repair station. Odd that’s in this place. He can’t imagine civilian owning a set of that stuff. Perhaps this place was used as a staging area for the military for a brief time. 

He has Codsworth use the station’s chains to prop himself up off the ground and Deacon flicks the switch for maintenance mode so he won’t get burnt by the thruster's flames -or the flamer since maintenance puts all functions on stand-by (he has to assure Codsworth, multiple times, that he will wake him once he’s done). From the ruined kitchen of the house, Deacon scrounges up a pair of oven mitts to protect his hands from the hot steel and pokes around until he finds the source of the wonky thruster: a few loose screws. Deacon chuckles to himself -how fitting. 

He tightens the screws and then picks over the rest of the robot. He wants to make sure that it's capable of hauling all his stuff back to Ticon. There are a few problems, but they are well within his capability to fix and after about an hour Deacon flicks the switch again, firing Codsworth back up. 

“Oh, thank God” Codsworth breathes as Deacon helps him down. He would have done it before turning him on to avoid the saw blade, but the robot is far too heavy for him to lift without power for the frame’s hydraulics. “Ah, not that I doubted you for a second, Mister Deacon.”

Deacon grins. “Of course, you didn’t, Codsworth. Everyone trusts this face.”

“Sir, I feel I must be honest with you.” Codsworth’s arms gather together and his optics droop in an approximation of contrition. “When I saw those Vault-Tec crates you were hauling, I feared you would pull me apart for scrap.”

“Trust me, pal, there is _way_ better scrap out there than you.”

“I’m not sure if I should be cheered or insulted by that comment.”

“Cheered. Definitely.”

“Might I ask what you are doing with all that Vault-Tec property, Mister Deacon?”

“Follow me, Codsworth, and I’ll show you.” Deacon heads down to his overburdened trolley. He pops the latch on the top crate, after loosening the ropes, and opens it for Codsworth to view.

“You’ll forgive me Sir, but this appears to be junk.”

Deacon chuckles. “Sure, like this it is. Valuable junk, but junk nonetheless. However, like anything in this world, it’s what you do with it that matters. I’m going to build a computer with it. Pretty neat huh?”

“Truly? I thought such knowledge was surely lost. Well, bravo, Sir.”

“Don’t congratulate me yet, pal. I haven’t built it, but you could help me.”

Codsworth perks up. Handy’s do like to be useful - _handy_ , one might say. “Indeed?”

Deacon sits on one of the lower crates. “I need a hand pushin’ this stuff to a place called Ticonderoga.”

“In _New York?!_ ” 

“No, no.” He laughs at the incredulous tone of the robot. “It’s just named after the fort; it’s not actually in New York. It’s a place over by the Charles River.”

“Oh, well that’s still quite the distance, Mister Deacon. Are you quite sure you want it there?”

“Yep. That’s where it’s got to go, but I had a hard enough time dragging it outta the vault, so I know I won’t have the strength to drag it to Ticon. I’d be grateful if you put that mighty thruster of yours to use in my service.”

Codsworth’s optics narrow. “You wish me to be little better than a pack mule!”

“Oh, my mistake. I thought General Atomics built you to serve.”

“Well, _yes_ , they did, but this is quite outside my programming.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Is it? I thought Handy’s hauled in groceries and heavy packages, pushed strollers and grocery carts. Is this really that far outside your programming? Or are you refusing to serve based on a personal preference?” He puts a dramatic hand on his cheek. “What would General Atomics say?”

Codsworth flutters up and down in indecision. Deacon knows how to talk circles around Handy’s circuitry. He used to have to do it to Andy all the time; he was such a finicky robot. There was a whole month right after the G.O.A.T. that Andy refused to talk with Stanley. Deacon was the go between the two of them and it was like trying to counsel an old married couple. 

“You have made a strong argument, Mister Deacon, but I feel I must warn you against trekking across what’s left of Massachusetts. I have had several unpleasant experiences with some ruffians.”

“I'm cautious to a fault, pal. Trust me, I can get us there safe.” He taps his plasma pistol. “Plus, I am willing to trade your services for something in return.”

“Such as?”

“Name something you want and I’ll see if it's something I can do.”

Codsworth hesitates for a moment, pincer rotating nervously. “You…were in the vault, correct? The one on the hill?”

Deacon nods.

“Perhaps you might know what happened to the family I served?”

Behind his sunglasses, Deacon closes his eyes. _Shit_ “Maybe,” he hedges. “Who’s your family?”

“The McCoys. Mister Nathaniel, Miss Nora, and their young son: Shaun.”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose. _Of course._ “I know what happened, sort of. It’s not the best of news, I’m afraid.”

“Please, Sir, after all this time, I need to know what happened to them,” Codsworth implores, fluttering slightly closer. Deacon can’t help flinching back a bit and Codsworth returns to his previous distance. 

He explains as kindly as he can that the residents of Vault 111 were killed, en masse, nearly 60-years-ago. The only survivor is Nora McCoy. Her husband was likely murdered by whoever rerouted the stasis signal as he is the only one of the deceased to have been killed via a bullet wound rather than by asphyxiation. Deacon found reference to their infant, but there was no baby in the vault. Probably taken, but he has no idea why.

Deacon also has to tell Codsworth, that Nora won’t be out of her cryogenic slumber until October 23rd, 2287. The Handy visibly deflates -he had perked up at bit at the knowledge that at least one of his people still survived. 

“Sorry, pal. I know this isn’t the best of news. But, hey, what’s 3 years? You’ve already waited for 200-and-some.”

“I suppose you’re right. Still, I had hoped to see them all again-” Despite his avowed aversion to Mr. Handy’s, Deacon kind of wants to give the robot a hug. He doesn’t (he hasn’t taken complete leave of his senses). “-but, perhaps young Shaun is still alive somewhere and when Miss Nora wakes, we might yet find him.”

“That’s the spirit. Don’t let the Wastes get you down, Codsworth. There is some beauty in them yet. _‘I know a bank where the wild corn blows, / Where carrots and the nodding hubflower grows, / Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, / With sweet bloodleaf and with eglantine’._ ”

“What a lovely sentiment, Sir.”

Deacon smiles. “Thanks, pal, but the Bard gets most of the credit for that one. I just replaced a few nouns. So, you willin’ to help me get this stuff to my place?”

“That was the agreement. The Charles River can’t be much more than two days from here and I do have time to spare these days.”

“Fantastic. If we get moving, we should be there just after dark.”

\- - - - -

They don’t have any real troubles on the journey -the area around the Switchboard is kept pretty much raider-free by the heavies and by sticking to the roads they’re less likely to run across the various monsters that call the Wastes home. However, Deacon is _this close_ to emptying his plasma cell into the robot just for a single moment of blessed _silence_.

Codsworth apparently missed having someone to talk with over the last 200-years and is currently trying to make up for all that conversation in the single days walk to Ticonderoga. 

The only thing that saves his life is that the moment Deacon’s itchy fingers reach for his pistol, he spots Parade moving out from cover near the perimeter of Ticon and he figures committing robot homicide after her coo of delight over said robot, might not be the best idea right now. 

In the light of her lantern, Deacon offers her a wide grin and moves his hand away from his plasma pistol. “Hey, Parade.”

“You find the best stuff, Dee. I always wanted a robot.”

“Good evening, Miss!” Codsworth says. Oh good, now he’ll talk someone else’s ear off.

“He’s not a toy. Plus, you guys have two protectrons that I personally restored.”

Parade makes a face. “High Rise won’t let us use them. They’re ‘just for emergencies’.”

Deacon chuckles at her impression of HR. “Come on, maybe I can convince him to let you play with at least _one_ of them.”

“You bringin’ all that crap with you?” Parade asks, pointing at the trolley.

It’s Codsworth that answers: “You’ll forgive me for saying so, Miss, but after I pushed this ‘crap’ half-way across the Commonwealth, he most certainly is.”

Deacon jabs his thumb at Codsworth. “What he said.”

Parade rolls her eyes and starts back to Ticonderoga’s entrance. “You do realize that High Rise is gonna freak when he sees you’ve drug even more crap back to a place you don’t even live in anymore.”

“What happened to ‘You’ll always be a Roga, Dee’?”

“Your inner ‘pack-rat’ exploded all over Ticon.”

When the three of them make it to the doors, it's clear there is no way they are going to get the trolley into the building, let alone into the elevator. Parade helps Deacon and Codsworth haul the heavy crates in and bitches about it the entire time. But it's the ‘ _I like you so I want to help, but just so you know if you were anyone else I would really mean all the things I’m saying right now’_ kind of bitching, so Deacon doesn't take it personally.

They manage to get all the crates and themselves in the elevator for the ride up, but it's a tight squeeze. Deacon sits on the topmost boxes with his feet on the others -strategically the furthest from Codsworth -not that Parade seems to mind. She is quite content to poke and prod the Handy. When she starts touching his sawblade, Deacon nearly slaps her hand away, only the image of her jerking and cutting her hand because of his actions, stops him.

When they reach the top floor, Parade jumps off and scrambles up the stairs to get High Rise and to avoid helping with the crates for the second time. He and Codsworth off-load the crates and by the time Deacon is hauling the last one out of the elevator, HR shows up, blinking tiredly in the bright lights of the common area. 

“Hey Dee, glad to see you back in one piece, but uh, what’s all this? And is that a Mr. Handy?”

Deacon sets the last crate down as Codsworth bustles forward to introduce himself.

“Codsworth at your service, Sir. Mister Deacon and I have come all the way from Sanctuary Hills with these odds and ends. I hope you don’t mind.”

High Rise raises an eyebrow. “More robot crap? You don’t even live here, man.”

“Didn’t you say something to the effect of 'mi casa es tu casa'?” Deacon asks with a smile as he sits on one of the crates. “Besides, this isn’t robot crap.” He taps the side of one of the crates. “This is Vault-Tec crap.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Sure. Well, okay, not really. Vault-Tec did contract RobCo for a lot of its electronic systems, but I’m not trying to build a robot. So I guess the difference is the ultimate purpose.”

“Which is?”

Deacon stands and stretches. “Something I’ll explain in the morning. I’m beat. You look it too.”

High Rise rubs his eyes. “Yeah, went to Goodneighbour yesterday to talk with Amari. Made it back this afternoon.”

“That must have been fun.”

“You have no idea,” HR replies with a grimace. “J8 -uh, _Jolene_ fared better than me. Sometimes wish I had their stamina, ya know?-” Deacon nods. “-So, what about Codsworth?”

“Sir,” Codsworth starts, “If I may suggest a few cleaning routines that I might perform during the-”

Deacon’s hand darts out and flicks Codsworth’s maintenance switch. He hits the floor with a heavy _thunk_.

“Problem solved.”

High Rise gives Deacon a weird look. “I thought you liked robots.”

“Handy’s are the exception.” Deacon throws an arm around HR’s shoulders and leads him upstairs. “To bed, to bed, sleepy head.”

After Deacon has steered High Rise into his room and retired to his, he stares up at the black ceiling unable to fall asleep despite being exhausted from travelling all day. He twirls the modified holotape in his hand. He’s second guessing himself right now. After he’s put in all that work to disassembling one of the vault’s computers and then talking Codsworth into pushing it all the way to Ticonderoga. 

He’s annoyed at himself. 

It’s not often he second guesses a decision he’s come to; that’s never who he’s been. (Oh, he has regrets, sure, but that’s not the same thing.) The Lone Wanderer is always certain of his convictions and the scared kid always votes for running and hiding, but neither one of them have anything to say on this. Both are quiet. The implications of this decision have silenced them and it has fallen to Deacon to be the final voice on this. 

Thing is, this holotape has always been one of the decisions he has second guessed. From the moment he downloaded the Enclave data on to it; to giving it to Amata to keep safe; to not destroying it after the Outcasts slaughtered her and the others in an attempt to retrieve it. He often wishes that Amata was less of a stubborn, strong-willed woman, because if she had just given them the tape she’d still be alive and Deacon could have managed that situation. He could have-

What? Talk with Sarah? The Wanderer scoffs. He’d already done that. She was the one who told the Outcasts that they might find Deacon at the vault, and when they didn’t? Well, they did what the Brotherhood does best: use their superior force to try and get what they wanted and then justified killing unarmed civilians by quoting their dogma. Even the memory of that conversation with Sarah stirs up coals of rage. 

He knew _logically_ he wasn’t thinking clearly, but after stumbling back out into the sunlight after the stench of blood and death overwhelmed him (holotape clutched tightly in his hand because even after all that carnage they had been unable to locate the _fucking thing_ ), vomiting into the dirt, shaking in anger and horror, he was also certain that this level of clarity had never been achieved before. 

He saw the laser burns on the walls, the spent fusion cells on the floor, the precise grouping of their shots; he _knew_ it was the Brotherhood. 

Even as he held Amata’s cold body and sobbed, he was already thinking about tearing the Brotherhood into small, bloodied pieces for the super mutants to feast on. Because how could they? How _dare_ they? After everything he’d done for them. He handed them the Capital Wasteland on a silver-Goddamned-platter for them to look after and they repaid him like this?

Murderous rage didn’t quite cover what he felt in that moment, or any of the ones that followed it. 

Sarah had the nerve to stare at him stonily when he burst into Citadel, anger breaking over every soldier in that place like a massive tsunami wave. None of them dared challenge him. Him, wearing that battered and worn Vault 101 suit that Moira had given him (the holotape stashed in the paneling of the Megaton’s bomb -where he should have put it in the first place, but he feared someone would tamper with the bomb and find it and where else was safer than in a vault? _Anywhere else_ , apparently), and them in _power armour._

“I want them,” he demanded, voice low and dangerous. He was quite sure she flinched back slightly at it. “I saw the burns, the fusion cells -you tell me who went into my vault and killed my family or I swear I will burn this place to the _fucking_ ground and roast tins of Insta Mash in the flames.”

“I received the mission debrief yesterday. Reprimands are currently being handed out-”

“Unless that reprimand includes a tall tree and a short rope it’s not good enough.”

Sarah crossed her arms. “If I sentenced a soldier to death every time a civilian was killed I wouldn’t have any soldiers left.”

“This is more than just a friendly fire mishap, Sarah. They murdered unarmed and untrained men and women!”

“They weren’t unarmed, John. They brandished weapons at-”

“Yes, because 10mm rounds make such ugly _dents_ in power armour.” He advanced on her, slamming his hands on the desk. “Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit? Have you seen the vault? Did your debrief include a vertibird trip to 101? Your power armoured assholes _slaughtered_ my family!”

“Then perhaps you should have considered that before you stole data from us, John.”

“Stole? From you?” He gave an incredulous huff of laughter. “I think you’ve got it backward. You wanted to steal from the Enclave-”

“And you beat us to it.” She cut him off with a growl. “I asked you for the data months ago and you refused to give it to us. The Outcasts were supposed to find you and _talk_ with you about it. You know I don’t condone what they did (I am not heartless), but neither can I take it back. I'm in a difficult situation here. I’m trying to bring the disparate parts of the Brotherhood back together and if I don’t show support for us as a whole that will never happen. At the same time, once this gets out, the people of the Capital will never trust us again and that will make our mission here very difficult.”

She sighed. He could see the lines of stress around her mouth and the sorrow in her eyes. Elder Lyons must have taken a turn for the worse. 

He might have felt empathy for her if he wasn’t so damn angry. If he wasn't so horribly _betrayed_.

“Give me the Outcasts and I’ll solve all your problems.”

Sarah gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh yes, that’s just what I need: The Lone Wanderer dead in an Outcast massacre.”

“Ye of little faith.”

She stared at him for a long moment.

“Give me the data and you can have them.”

“No.”

“That’s my offer, John. The data for the Outcasts.”

There was little else in the world that pissed him off more than the condescending way she said his given name -it reminded him of the way Overseer Almodovar sneered at him. 

“If you call me John one more time, Sarah, I _will_ kill you.”

Her hand fluttered down to her side arm. “I can’t give you them without something in return. We still need that data from Raven Rock.”

“No, you don’t. You got Adam’s Airforce Base, what else do you need? You got all of Autumn’s experiments, data, and equipment. There was never anything at Raven Rock for you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

And there was the crux of the issue. The Brotherhood will always believe that they are the keepers of the world’s technology. That they are the only ones who can handle it and keep it safe from the idiot masses. God forbid they try and use it for the good of everyone or educate the people as to its safe use. But, no, they can’t do that because then they’d have to acknowledge that they aren’t the fucking masters of the universe. 

“No, you won’t. I’ve already made that decision.”

She bristled.

His mouth curled in the mockery of a smile. “Not a very pleasant sensation is it? When someone condescends to you because they think they know better.”

“You’re a Goddamn hypocrite, Jack. For all the pretty speeches you’ve made about the Brotherhood’s faults, you’re just like us.”

Hardly.

“I was going to wipe it, ya know? I wasn’t going to keep anything there because there was nothing in that place that should be in the hands of anyone, let alone you people. That would have been in the best interests of the Capital -a phrase you don’t understand, I know- but Eden asked me to look after it and I agreed; thinking that one day I could use it to help.”

Her lip curled. “That sonuvabitch survived, did he?”

“And how is he worse than you?”

“He’s Enclave,” she replied as if that explained everything. He wanted to shake her.

“You can rest easy on your high-horse, _Elder_ , John Henry Eden is no more and Raven Rock is permanently beyond your reach.”

Sarah’s face took on the expression she often wore while killing super mutants. How nice. 

“You’re forcing my hand, Jack.” She looked past him and yelled “Knights!” 

The two soldiers that he had passed when he burst into Sarah’s office entered the room at that bellow. They took a hold of his arms and he let them. 

“Search him," she commanded.

They hesitated a moment, but at the look on Sarah’s face they hastened to comply. He started at Sarah while the knights pulled every piece of tech and armour off of him until he had nothing but his vault suit. 

“If I’d known how kinky you were, Sarah, I’d’ve asked a few soldiers to join us _ages_ ago,” he said with a cruel smirk. “Though this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I thought about getting fucked by you.”

The knights shuffled awkwardly behind him and a fierce blush stained Sarah’s cheeks. She refused to look away, though. She dismissed the knight with a wave of her hand and looked through the few objects on they had placed on her desk. 

“It’s not there. You don’t actually think I would have brought it with me, do you?”

“No, but I had hoped.” She picked up his plasma pistol and turned it over in her hand until the _Enclave_ stamp on the barrel was visible. “I never understood what you saw in them.”

“That’s because you see the Brotherhood and nothing else. If you considered what was best for the Capital, you might have understood.”

“The Brotherhood is what’s best for the Capital.”

He snorted. “No, the Capital is best for the Brotherhood. There’s a difference.”

She placed his pistol back on the desk, her face still pink and scowly. “Take your shit and get out of here. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t be back.”

“No, if you know what’s good for you, you’d better hope that I find the Outcast bastards because if I don’t, I will be back and I wasn’t fucking kiddin’ about the Insta Mash.”

He gathered his things, pointedly taking the time to strap every piece of armour and weapon back onto his person as Sarah watched. He turned to go, his hand on the door’s handle when she caught his arm. 

“Jack, please understand the position I’m in. How precarious it is. If I sanction this revenge without getting something in return, the Brotherhood will tear itself apart. Do you want a war so soon after the last?”

He pulled his arm from her grasp, a disgusted look twisting his features. “Choosing to do what’s right isn’t easy, Sarah. That’s why it’s called the ‘High Road’. You know I can rally the people for you or against you. The choice is yours.”

“Your inner hypocrite is showing again: using them as cannon fodder.”

He started laughing, it was a dark sound and Sarah recoiled as if burnt. “You had to use Liberty Prime to destroy the Enclave, but I could’ve done it with a keystroke. I fight smart, not hard, and not at the expense of others.”

When he opened the door, she did not try to stop him again. 

He wanted to use the holotape to help and Deacon still does, but the only reason he kept it was because Eden asked him to. Begged him to, in fact, and in the face of all that had come before he couldn’t say no. What did he say now? What did he think now? The data was dangerous; not now sure, but in three years? Absolutely. And what if the Institute got a hold of it? He shudders at the very thought.

Of course, there is always the possibility for that with it tooling around in his pocket 24/7. A3-21 identified him with a blood sample and he’s kidding himself if he thinks they don’t do that with every Railroad agent they kill just in case it's one of their missing synths. If (when) they kill him, they will know who he is and be more inclined to search his possessions. Maybe they’ll toss the holotape aside as outdated tech or maybe they’ll wonder what The Lone Wanderer keeps on the holotape he has in his jeans and investigate. 

Suddenly his decision to do nothing has brought The Institute, _the Commonwealth_ , to its knees. 

No. If there is a chance he can shape the data for the good of the Commonwealth, he has to try. The tyranny of evil, good men, and all that.

Deacon has a fitful sleep after that, but not because he is questioning his course of action once again. No. He doesn’t sleep well because his brain is in overdrive trying to figure out how to put this custom computer together. He wakes before everyone else, switches Codsworth back on and explains that a radiation storm the other night hit the tower with a lightning bolt that jumped a socket and hit the robot as he was cleaning in the kitchen. They moved him to the common area, thinking that they might take him upstairs for Deacon to fix, but Deacon was pretty sure that if they flicked the maintenance switch and left it like that overnight that old Codsworth would be as good as new the next morning. And hey! He was! Yay!

Then, Deacon asks for Codsworth to brew some coffee.

As the Handy putters around the in the background, making various noises that range from humming _‘Rule Britannia’_ to creaking joints, Deacon starts making plans for his computer on some paper he scrounged up from the common area. Mostly torn bits of posters, scraps of folders, and scribbled notes to other agents.

By the time the rest of the agents crawl out of bed, Deacon’s already had three cups of coffee, a bowl of Sugar Bombs, and one of the Mentats he’d left on his safe. He is in the zone and barely acknowledges the other agents morning greetings, except to pull his papers way from their sloshing coffee cups and crumbly breakfast foods. 

He moves when the table starts to become crowded and heads upstairs with another cup of coffee and his notes. He doesn’t come down again and only Codsworth bothers him with things like water or food. High Rise knows better and tells the two new agents that Deacon is in a happy place called 'temporary insanity' and it’s best to wait for him to come back to Earth rather than chance catching him talk to people who have been dead for 200-plus-years. 

Deacon would indignantly point out that he has it on good authority that Robert House is not, in fact, dead. Okay, not _good_ authority (caravaners are notorious for their dodgy gossip), but come on, that’s too good of a story not to believe, even if it isn’t true. 

Sometime in the evening, Deacon feels he has a good idea of how to start his project and starts hauling crates upstairs. Codsworth helps and Deacon decides not to switch the Handy off tonight. He’s not going to get any real sleep, maybe a few fits and starts here and there, because he knows he won’t be able to really sleep until he has made good progress on his project. Plus, if he turns off Codsworth, who will make him coffee at 2 a.m.?

The next day, High Rise comes by for some caps -Deacon’s pretty much depleted their supply of brahmin milk. He gives High Rise all the caps he’s got on him and asks for a few boxes of Blamco Mac and Cheese as well. While he’s got Codsworth, he's going to make use of his mad mac and cheese making skills. 

It takes Deacon four days, the rest of his Mentats (a few problems required the full, unfettered use of his brain), two boxes of Blamco Mac and Cheese, and an unquantified amount of coffee to build his computer to a good starting point. He’ll have to continuously add on to it as the data builds and it requires more processing power because he plans on having every person who shuffles through this safehouse to add their stories to it. 

He hopes that this will make the end result more manageable.

Before he turns it on and plugs in the holotape, Deacon runs maintenance on Ticonderoga’s generator, and because it only makes sense, he also checks on the elevator. This process takes him another two days, but he spends meals with the rest of the house and they are happy to have him among their numbers again. 

This is when he learns that Nick ran a skillful interrogation of High Rise and company and that he was less than pleased about Deacon’s current situation. Nick is pretty good at keeping his temper in check -unlike Deacon, who will explode because he has zero outlets, he really should work on that- so it is possible that Nick was much angrier than he let on. He probably shouldn’t be so happy about that, but the emotion refuses to be tamped down. Nick left for Diamond City morning after Deacon left for Vault 111. 

From Nick, the conversation moves to J8 -Jolene.

“So, how mad was Amari? Wet hen or momma yao guai?” Deacon asks with a smirk.

High Rise groans. “Totally yao guai, but on the upside, she was mostly mad that a Courser jumped you and me again (and that our green agent got such a rough first outing), and not that Jolene wanted to stick with us.”

“She’s always a bit mad about that,” Parade says as she jabs the air with her fork.

“Not that you were there, or anything,” Callie replies.

“I didn’t have to be. I’ve heard all the stories.”

Uncle laughs. “Yeah like the one about Glory gettin’ into an argument with Amari on the ethics of memory reassignment. That’s a good one.”

“Man, I wish I’d been there for that,” Parade says with a sigh. “Glory is so hot; she must have been on fire that day.”

Deacon shakes his head with a grin and turns to Jolene. “What’s the story behind the name? They all told you theirs, right? It’s tradition.”

Jolene ducks her head slightly and High Rise throws an arm around Deacon’s shoulders. 

“We waited for you, man. It wouldn’t haven been right since you’ve returned to the Roga fold.”

“Returned might be too strong a word, but you know I’m always here in spirit. If you are ever feeling lonely for me, just sit with my robot parts, you’ll get over that _really_ quick.”

There was a smattering of chuckles from around the table. 

“So,” Uncle says, “Who starts?”

“Newbie,” Parade replies and points at Drummer Boy, “Then Callie, Uncle, me, Deacon, High Rise, and lastly our little Jolene.”

Deacon starts softly humming a few bars of a song that keeps coming to mind every time some says ‘Jolene’.

“You heard the lady, Drummer,” High Rise says with a grin. “You’re first.”

Drummer rests his elbows on the table. “Well, it was the nickname my mom had for me when I was little because I liked to bang on all her pots and pans with a wooden spoon like I was a one-man-band. It was what came to mind when I was pretty much put on the spot with the ‘What do you want to be called, and it can’t be your real name’. bit”

“You can take more than a few seconds to pick a name,” Deacon says with a laugh.

“Yeah, I know that now, but with all those agents staring at you just waiting for a name, I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Deacon smirks. “I can imagine with all these mouth-breathers.”

There is a collective “Hey!” from the group and Drummer starts laughing. 

“Now you Callie,” High Rise says when they’ve calmed again.

“My grandfather is the reason that I love gardening. He had all these Old-World gardening magazines and my favourite flower was always the calla lily. Now that’s kind silly for a name and too long for me, but Callie is short and sweet.”

“Just like you, sweetie,” Parade says as she playfully pinches Callie’s cheek. Callie bats her away. Jolene and Drummer chuckle at their interaction.

“I guess that means it’s now my turn,” Uncle says, pre-empting High Rise. “It’s like this: I’m the oldest one here and I didn’t want to end up with a nickname like ‘Pop’ or ‘Gramps’ so I figured if I picked ‘Uncle’ then my age could be respectively acknowledged and I wouldn’t have to hand out any head-slaps.”

“Thank you for respecting our craniums, Uncle,” Deacon says with great gravitas.

“Ditto,” High Rise adds. “The longer I can go without a concussion, the better.”

Parade beats the table with her fists and Drummer, Callie, and Jolene join her in a hearty “Hear! Hear!”

Uncle stands and bows and there is more laughter. Once he is seated again, Parade starts.

“So, I don’t have any mushy family tales that involve my name. I just like it because of the Old-World tradition it brings to mind: loud marching bands, dancers, floats and decorated cars all heading down a street while gobs of people look on in awe. I grew up in New York and the Macy’s Day Parade is awesome. Anyways, I liked the-” here, she points at Deacon.

“Juxtaposition,” Deacon says with a smile. That’s the real reason they waited for him. She never remembers how to say that word.

“-Between the loudness and brashness of a parade and my being, what basically amounts to, a thief.”

High Rise and Deacon gasp in a highly dramatic way as if they can’t believe what they're hearing. 

Parade laughs. “Yeah, yeah. So, I picked Parade to keep people guessing.”

“No you didn’t,” Deacon scoffs with a grin. “You picked Parade because you liked the idea of gobs of people staring at you in awe.”

“Well, that too.”

High Rise starts beating a drum roll on the table with his hands and at the crescendo, Parade taps her glass with the side of her fork. 

“Pretty sure this story isn’t going to be worth that magnificent drum roll,” Deacon says.

“I doubt it. The best part of this is hearing the bullshit story you make up. Remember last time?”

Uncle starts laughing. “Yeah, the letter in the bottle one? That was gold.”

“Naw, the best one was the yao guai cub. _‘Deecaan! Deecaaan!_ ” Parade dissolves into laughter. 

“No, no, no. Y'all got it wrong. The best one was where he was at the brink of death and a protectron descended from the heavens.” High Rise takes on the mechanical voice of a protectron. _“My son, you will live. Rise up now. Rise up. Go forth and be known as Deacon.”_

All three continued to laugh while Drummer, Callie, and Jolene watched with bemused looks. 

“You mean, Deacon never tells you the real story?” Jolene asks.

“Dee never tells the real anything,” High Rise replies. “He’s all about actions over words, that’s how we know he’ll always have our back no matter how crazy his words get.”

“The truth is the real story is boring and who wants to hear a boring tale?” Deacon says. “I’m a time traveller from the past, here to check up on the future of humankind. See? Boooring. My D.I.A. code name is 'Deacon', and for ease of reporting, I just kept it. That way, when I send my super-secret reports to HQ, I can just copy and paste and bam! D.I.A. report is done.” Deacon leans closer to the group. “The real secret is: I’m lazy. Who wants to write two reports?”

“Don’t tell Tinker Tom that, he’ll probably believe you,” High Rise says with a laugh.

Deacon gives HR a _‘Who? Me?’_ look. “I would never mess with him like that.”

Parade rolls her eyes. “Pu-lease. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t already fed him that one.”

“I haven’t actually. Nick, on the other hand…”

“Dude, you didn’t,” HR gasps, face fighting between amusement and shock. He’s probably a little frightened of Nick after what happened after Deacon left.

Parade laughs. “Of course he did. Nothin’s sacred to Dee.”

Deacon nudges High Rise’s shoulder. “Your turn, pal.”

“Right. So, I used to use chems pretty heavily, always looking for that elusive high. When I finally quit, the doc that helped me get clean told me that: ‘from here on out, the only heights you should be achieving are top floors of high-rise buildings.’" HR shrugs. "Took the name to remind me of that.”

Jolene looks to each of them in turn. “Your names mean something to each of you; maybe I’ve made a mistake picking mine.”

Callie throws an arm around Jolene. “I doubt that. If you like it, then that’s all that matters.”

“Yeah,” Drummer adds. “And, just so you know, I like it to.”

“Besides,” High Rise continues. “The simple virtue of having a real name means something. Don’t forget how you got here.”

“I haven’t, but…”

“ _Your beauty is beyond compare / With gleaming locks of raven hair / With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green / Your smile is like a breath of spring / Your voice is soft like summer rain / And I cannot compete with you, Jolene…_ ” Deacon gives her a smile and Jolene blushes. He was hoping for a smile in return, but he’ll take what he can get. “And that sounds a lot better to music, but I’m afraid I’m not much of a singer.”

“Trust Deacon to have a quote, poem, or song to fit any occasion,” Uncle says with a laugh.

“That’s what you get when you have an entire library of literature rattin’ around in your brain: it just gets vomited out all over you plebeians.”

“If I knew what that meant, I’d probably be offended,” Parade says.

“It means ‘commoner’,” Jolene explains. “It’s from Ancient Roman times when commoners were referred to as ‘plebs’.”

“Ohho! Look out Dee, this one is gonna be competin’ for your title of ‘Know it All’,” High Rise says and gives Jolene a grin. “Someone needs to knock his ass down a coupla pegs. He thinks he so smart.”

“’Cause I am, but let’s set aside my genius for the moment because Jolene still has to tell us why she picked her name.”

All eyes turn to Jolene. Parade, however, is wearing a particular knowing smirk.

“Well, I asked for some suggestions; names that started with ‘J’. Parade rattled off a few names of girls she used to know. I liked Jolene.”

Deacon smirks. “You do realize that when Parade says she ‘used to know a girl’, she means that she used to fuck said girl?”

Jolene blushes violently.

Parade throws a Mentat at Deacon’s head. “Leave me some Goddamn mystery, you troll.”

“Don’t hit on the new agents, you perv.” He picks up the Mentat and chucks it into Parade’s mouth. 

“I’m the perv? You’re the one hittin’ on Diamond City’s robot dick.”

There’s smattering of laughter from the group. Deacon manages to keep a straight face, save for raising one eyebrow.

“Uh, that’s synthetic detective. Trust me, if Nick ever catches you calling him that you will not survive the reprisal.” Deacon turns to Jolene. “If you like the name, then keep it, but don’t let Parade foist old girlfriend's names on you.”

“She didn’t. I like it; it just doesn’t have a meaning.”

Deacon shrugs. “In my experience, it isn’t us as individuals that give a name meanin', but those around us. Every story you heard about our names was someone else givin’ them meanin’. Trust me, these guys and gals at this table will give that name of yours plenty of that in the comin' days.”

This time, High Rise starts banging on the table, Parade quickly joins him and soon everyone but Deacon and Jolene are pounding their fists on the table. At the crescendo, there is a chorus of: “HEAR! HEAR!”

When Deacon’s finished with Ticon’s maintenance and he’s certain he has the appropriate amount of power running to his room to support his creation, he plugs it in. There are a few shorts and couple of sparks that force Deacon to unplug and repair the trouble spots. When he tries again the machine hums smoothly with no further troubles. Now the moment of truth.

Deacon pulls the modified holotape from his pocket and turns it over in his hand. He’s suddenly nervous. He draws in a deep breath and shoves the holotape in the appropriate slot. On the screen of the terminal, just below the RobCo logo, the follow text appears:

Download data? Yes / No

Deacon types: ‘Yes’ and hits ‘Enter’.

As a progress bar appears, Deacon’s gaze sweeps around his desk. The computer he built takes up all the available space on the surface of the desk; a hodgepodge collection of linked towers, terminal hard drives, a microphone for dictation, and one monitor screen and keyboard that have been pulled out of their terminal casings and are propped on the desk, somewhat haphazardly. A long-term solution will have to be found for this, but until then it will do. Hopefully, it will provide enough space and power until Deacon can get back up to the vault and scrounge more materials. 

The progress bar reads 2%. Deacon’s head falls back against the chair’s headrest. This is going to take _forever_.

\- - - - -

It takes most of the day for the data to download, during which Deacon gathers his things and decides what to do about Codsworth. He doesn’t feel comfortable leaving him at Ticonderoga, but the Handy has taken such an obvious shine to everyone in the place and is loving being useful again, that Deacon is hesitant to banish him to the loneliness of Sanctuary Hills again. 

Codsworth doesn’t seem like he’ll go ‘doctor’ on anyone, but neither did Andy ‘til Almodovar made him Chief Medical Officer of Vault 101 -though, Andy always did have a bit of a mean streak. Codsworth, on the other hand, seems to be far more kind and thoughtful than Andy ever was. He doesn’t have to trust Codsworth, he supposes, and as long as High Rise and company like the Handy, what’s the harm? He’ll be here monthly and he can make sure the robot isn’t acting weirdly. One wrong word and he’ll flick Codsworth’s switch, wipe his short term memory, and send him back to Sanctuary Hills. 

He talks it over with High Rise, who is perfectly happy to have a robot butler tooling around Ticon. Codsworth has already made himself useful by cooking meals and helping with Callie’s garden, plus the Handy pesters Parade about her Mentat addiction and is concerned with the health of all the agents. 

Deacon frowns. “He’s not a doctor. Don’t treat him like one. That will not end well.”

“No, of course not. It’s more like a motherly concern. Like, ‘Did you eat all your veggies?’ ‘You look so thin! You better eat something.’ Shit like that. It’s nice. I can see why they were so popular before the war.”

“Okay. As long as it’s just that. Promise you’ll let me know if he starts acting strangely, even if you have to send a runner to Diamond City.”

High Rise gives him a weird look. “Sure… What is it with you and Handies? You love robots, man.”

“Let’s just say that General Atomics sucks at programmin' and leave it at that.”

“Surely they wouldn’t have sold them to the public if they weren’t safe.”

Deacon gives High Rise a _‘You’re kidding, me, right?’_ look.

HR shakes himself. “Yeah, you’re right. Can’t believe I even said those words.”

Later, Deacon talks with Codsworth.

“So, how’s everything working out here, pal?”

Codsworth’s optics raise upwards, the Handy’s version of a smile. “Oh, Mister Deacon, you have no idea how wonderful it is to be useful again. I feared that I would never do anything other than take care of that dilapidating house.”

“You can’t stay here forever, ya know. I’m glad you like it here, hell, they all love havin' you, but Nora will need you when she wakes up.”

“I know, Sir. You have given me the date and I will be there to greet her when she arrives, but if it's alright, I’d like to stay here until then.”

Deacon smiles. He’s going soft on this Handy. “Hey, it’s cool with me. You make sure it’s cool with High Rise. He’s boss man around here.”

“Will do, Sir!” Codsworth wheels away then, humming _‘Rule Britannia’._ It's catchy, Deacon has caught himself whistling it a few times.

After supper, the data has completed downloading. He’s programmed the base operating system to allow for text document entries, but once the entry is saved it cannot be accessed again. He’s done this to prevent anyone from getting too nosy and shifting through the documents or using it as a platform to jump from there to the data, but also because he feels that this is the only way to get anyone to enter their stories: on the assurance that no one will be able to read them. 

The first story is his own. He writes it in the form of a letter in hopes that it will kick-start the consolidation of the data.

He returns to Diamond City after he’s talked with everyone at Ticon and explained that for his little science project to work, it’s very important that they tell their stories. If someone cannot type, for whatever reason, he set up a microphone dictation, so all they have to do is speak. He reiterates that the document cannot be accessed by anyone, even themselves once, it has been saved and closed. 

Most of them have some computer experience, but Deacon’s relying on High Rise to handle the bulk of the instructions. He has really been gone too long from Diamond City and needs to get back, pronto. He's buckling all his gear back on as he makes them promise to do this for him, to record their tales, their reasons for joining The Railroad, or leaving The Institute. He emphasizes to HR that he needs to get all the synths to write their stories when they pass through Ticon, before they go anywhere else before they see Amari; it is imperative that they first use his computer.

They all seem to think his insistence is odd, but they’re willing to do anything for Deacon. 

Lastly, Deacon asks that they not tell HQ about his project. To that, they all readily agree, probably because they’d like to have something secret from The Switchboard. He bids them farewell, with the promise to back in a month to check up on them, his computer, and Ticonderoga. 

It takes two hours to get back to Diamond City and the heat of the afternoon is hot on his face and chest by the time he arrives. He avoids a few clusters of raiders and a pack of ferals on the trip, mostly because he’s pretty low on stims and in no mood for a fight. His brain is pretty much sludge from the last few days and having to relive and describe every decision from the moment he first stepped out into the Capital ‘til now. 

Tom is on gate duty when he walks into Diamond City's outer courtyard. 

“You better go see, Ellie,” Tom says with a grin. “She’s been at the gate every day since Nicky got back, askin’ if you’ve walked in yet.”

“Is that a good thing?” Deacon asks with some trepidation.

Tom shrugs. “No idea, but speakin’ from experience, it’s better not to avoid her.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

Deacon heads into the city and as he trots down the ramp, he considers where to go first. If he heads to the Dugout Inn to drop off his stuff, Vadim will probably have a bunch of questions and he might not get out again until late. He wants to drop his vest and coat off with Charlie to get the latter repaired and the former patched -the radiation dust will be hell on the exposed metal, but if what Tom said was true, he might need to see Ellie first. 

Decisions, decisions. 

Charlie first. He’d rather Ellie not see the hole in his vest were the Courser’s laser singed the fabric. Once he has that squared away, then he can talk with Ellie. The tailor greets him cheerfully, though his smile vanishes once he sees the mess that is Deacon’s bomber jacket is in and the matching hole on the vest. Deacon taps the vest with a grin. 

“Saved my life, Charlie, so no frowning.”

Charlie shakes himself. “Of course, that’s the point. I just didn’t expect…”

“It to get used?” Deacon chuckles. “That’s what you get for making armour for a merc, and it worked like a charm. Now all it needs is a patch.”

Charlie brightens. “I’ve got just the thing.” He sweeps the coat out of Deacon’s hand and impatiently motions for Deacon to get out of his vest. “Now, go. Nick’s probably dying to see you now that you’re back.”

“And here I was thinkin’ it was Ellie that I had to worry about.”

“Her too," Charlie replies with a smirk.

He fairly shoves Deacon out of the door and Deacon meets Becky at the top of the stairs. They nod to one another as they go by. She’ll probably be pleased that Charlie didn’t spare much time for pleasantries this time around. 

Now to see Ellie.

Deacon gets a few more nods and greetings on his way to Valentine’s Detective Agency. Maybe he’s made better inroads in this city than he thought, or maybe they just realized what a good thing they had only when it was gone. This latest _adventure_ is the longest he’s been away from Diamond City. 

When he steps through the Agency’s door, Ellie looks up from a report she is typing. “Rhett!” she exclaims and stands. “Er…I mean, Deacon.” Hesitantly, she steps around the desk. “Nick said you’d be back; he just didn’t know when.”

“To be honest, neither did I, but I met Tom at the gate and he told me to get down here, pronto.”

“Good. He’s been volunteering for gate duty since Nick got back, I asked him to watch for you.”

Deacon smirked, she’s got a good handle on that boy. “So-”

“Look Rhett -Deacon.” She shakes her head, annoyed at her mistake. “I just want to apologize for giving you the cold-shoulder before. You’ve always been good to me and Nick, hell, this whole damn town, and I should have trusted you-”

Deacon shakes his head. “Ellie, don’t worry about it. I know I don’t come off as the most trustworthy person, and you and Nick were perfectly within your rights to distrust me when I refused to talk about why I was here. I take it Nick told you about that?”

Ellie nods. “Not all of it, I’m sure. He always wants to protect me.” She rolls her eyes in fondness. “But he was so mad when he got back into town that it wasn’t hard to get the story out of him. I think he wanted to talk about it. To be honest, I’m kinda pissed off at myself and angry at myself for being just like them.”

Deacon steps up to her and pulls her into a hug because she looks like she needs it. She immediately hugs back.

“I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

Deacon rubs her back. “Stop it. It’s irradiated water under the bridge.” 

“Okay, but I still feel like I need to make it up to you somehow.”

“Make me some sweetrolls, we’ll totally be even then.”

Ellie pulls back and smiles. “That, I can do.”

Behind him, the door to the agency opens and Deacon and Ellie turn, still partially in each other's arms. Nick walks through the door and smiles at the sight of them.

“You tell Tom you’re mackin’ on his girl, kid?”

Deacon grins and sweeps Ellie into a dip. She lets out a surprised gasp, then laughs.

“I’ve told Tom that we’re madly in love, Nick. I gave her my whole meager kingdom for her sweetrolls.”

Nick laughs as Deacon makes a kissy face at Ellie. She smacks his arm with a grin and he sets her back on her feet. 

“Well, I can’t say I’ve missed your antics, Deacon,” Ellie says as she rights herself, “But I have missed the laughter. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow, but for now, I’m taking the rest of the day off.” Ellie grabs her things and Nick makes a noise of surprise. “Play nice,” she says with a knowing smile and leaves Nick and Deacon alone.

“Too clever for her own good, that one,” Nick says when Ellie’s gone. 

Deacon leans against Ellie’s desk. “Yep, definitely.”

“You see Charlie already?” Nick gestures to Deacon’s dress shirt as he lights a cigarette.

“Yeah, he was _way too_ eager to get me out of my clothes, let me tell you.”

Nick snorts. “Sounds like you gotta taste of your own medicine.”

“If I recall correctly, you told me to cut your shirt off. Sendin’ mixed signals here, Nick.”

“You sure, kid?” Nick replies with a raised eyebrow, but before Deacon can think about formulating a quip, Nick continues. “How long you stickin’ around?”

Deacon shrugs. “Probably ‘til fall. Was told a permanent agent is coming in the summer, so I have to be here for that and to make sure Diamond City doesn’t vomit rejection all over them.”

Nick blows out a curl of smoke and moves toward his desk. “After that?”

“Probably won’t be welcome back at HQ so I’ll tool around to other safehouses, check up on them, clear routes, maybe get some package transfers in there. Nothing too exciting.”

“You can’t stay?”

Deacon smiles a little sadly. “No.”

“Can’t or won’t, kid?”

“Both.”

Nick stares at him thoughtfully. Then, he grabs a case file and tosses it at Deacon. “What does that Pre-War knowledge of yours know about the Maltese Falcon?”

Deacon catches the file between his two hands. “Uh, only that’s it’s one of my favourite Bogey movies and that it’s ‘the stuff dreams are made of’.” Deacon flips through the file, a grin spreading over his face. “Wait, are we lookin’ for the Maltese Falcon, cause that just might be the coolest thing ever.”

“Some guy hired me to find it. The movie prop, that is. Was here in Boston a spell before the war apparently, but if it still is anyone’s guess.”

Deacon flips the folder shut and jumps up in excitement. “Oh Nick, just imagine holding it! A piece of Americana! I’ve got chills. _Chills!_ ”

Nick laughs. “So that’s a 'yes' on helpin’ me find it?”

“That’s an ‘oh hell yes’ to be more precise. Where do we start?”

A couple days later, Deacon picks up his vest from Charlie. Nick and he are heading out into the ruins to see if they can find the residence of the dentist who used to own the old movie prop. Charlie brings the vest out from the back with a flourish and a grin. 

Deacon stares at it in surprise. 

Charlie has repaired the singed hole with a bright, red patch of fabric. A bright, red, _heart-shaped_ piece of fabric. 

“Uh, Charlie, what’s this?” Deacon asks as the tailor hands over the vest.

“What? You and Nick are back together, right? Partners? Shouldn’t everyone know you’re the other half of Valentine’s Detective Agency? Think of it as a…oh, what did they call it? Ya know, before the war?” Charlie snaps his fingers, trying to think. “Brand! Yeah, a brand.”

Deacon touches the heart. It’s a brand all right. He's heard of wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, but this? God, this is like advertising his crush on Nick to the whole world

He slides the vest on, not much he can do about it now, he’s meeting Nick at Sammy shortly. Maybe before he quits Diamond City he can remove it for something a little less flashy because once the people in this place see it, he’ll be instantly recognizable no matter how many times he changes his face, and he was sort of hoping this vest would last him long past Diamond City

“Thanks, Charlie. I think.”

“Hey, it’s on the house, so you better be,” Charlie replies good-naturedly. “I’ll have your bomber ready in a few days, figure I’d try something new with it.”

“Take all the time you need, pal. Hopefully won’t need it for a while, too damn hot for it these days anyways." Deacon finishes buttoning the vest, running a hand over the red heart. The stitching is really nice, almost be a shame to take it off. 

Deacon manages to avoid most of the market due to the location of Fallon’s entrance, but Piper and Nat are sitting out in the morning sun eating breakfast and Piper wolf-whistles from their table. Deacon waves and turns to show off his red heart properly -though he may be a bit embarrassed to be so blatantly wearing his heart on his chest, as long as you act like you own it, people will forget about it soon enough.

“Nick’s waiting for you lover-boy!” Piper calls with a laugh and Nat smacks her sister’s arm. 

He’s glad to see that one of them has manners. 

Deacon trots out the gate, stealth boy swinging on his belt, and finds Nick waiting for him at Sammy Swatter. When Nick catches sight of him he straightens from where he was leaning against the statue, and an eyebrow raises in question when he sees Deacon’s vest.

“Charlie thought I needed a quote-unquote _brand_. Apparently, people associate ‘Valentine’ with hearts. Can’t imagine why.”

They pat Sammy’s shoulder and they start out of the courtyard, side-by-side. 

“That’s a tough one, no doubt,” Nick replies, tone dry.

“Looks pretty sharp, though, right?”

Nick looks over at him, eyes flicking down to the heart and back up again. “Now who’s sendin’ mixed messages, kid?”

Deacon grins and shrugs. That _is_ his modus operandi after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Sanctuary Hills, when Deacon recites Shakespeare, the actual line are: _I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, / Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, / With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:_ -and is from _Midsummer Night's Dream (2.1.255)_
> 
> Then at Ticon, Deacon recites a slightly changed verse from Dolly Parton's _'Jolene'_. (Which I pretty much listen to on repeat) The actual verse goes: _Your beauty is beyond compare / With flaming locks of auburn hair / With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green / Your smile is like a breath of spring / Your voice is soft like summer rain / And I cannot compete with you, Jolene_
> 
> OH MY GOD! FAR HARBOUR!!


	8. Everything I touch, seems to disappear. Everywhere I turn, you are always here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _BENEDICK: …And, I pray thee now, tell me for_   
>  _which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?_
> 
> _BEATRICE: For them all together; which maintained so politic_   
>  _a state of evil that they will not admit any good_   
>  _part to intermingle with them. But for which of my_   
>  _good parts did you first suffer love for me?_
> 
> _BENEDICK: Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love_   
>  _indeed, for I love thee against my will._
> 
> _BEATRICE: In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart!_   
>  _if you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours;_   
>  _for I will never love that which my friend hates._
> 
> _BENEDICK: Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably._
> 
> _-Much Ado About Nothing (5.2.51)_

It took them the better part of two weeks to solve the case of the Maltese Falcon. 

Mostly because they had to trek all the way to the north-eastern corner of the Commonwealth to talk with a fisherman about the use of his boat to find the last resting place of the movie-prop. 

Then, the guy that hired Nick tried to kill them in an ambush, and aside from dodging bullets while lugging around a heavy lead statue, Deacon was utterly bubbly with excitement. It was like living a movie. It was like being Sam Spade and that was so _awesome_. He’s sure that his excitement came off as pretty manic, and their surviving ambushers will probably have nightmares about his wild laughter and plasma pistol, but hell, they deserved that and Deacon deserves to keep the Maltese Falcon. 

So, win-win. 

He proudly shows it off to Ellie, Piper, and by extension Nat, though they don’t actually know why it’s so awesome. Nat thinks it’s an ugly bird, Piper agrees, but she thinks all the trouble Nick and Deacon went through to get it will make a good story, so she sets up a time to interview them about the experience. Ellie also expresses reservations about the statue, but Deacon’s dramatic telling of the original story wins her over -if only because of his exuberance. 

Deacon sets the statue on Nick’s desk, careful to keep the scrap of cloth it had been wrapped in between him and the lead. He’s going to clean the patina off it, once he finds some appropriate gear to protect himself from the poisonous effects of the metal. Some caravaner must have a hazard suit or know where Deacon can get one. 

The Maltese Falcon will really be spectacular once it’s returned to its shimmering self. 

After that exciting welcome back to Diamond City, June passes with relative quiet. They have a few cases, and Deacon heads back to Ticon for a couple of days as promised. Everything is running smoothly there and Deacon and High Rise talk a bit about what they wrote in their monthly reports. 

Deacon never mentioned anything about Randolph house or Mr. Timms in his report, just about the Courser nearing killing them because it managed to track Jolene via a keepsake. Ticon has started advising all synths who come to them that they need to destroy all previous possessions, just in case, and both him and High Rise recommended that all safehouses be told to do the same. 

High Rise, on the other hand, did mention to HQ that he and the other members of Ticon had told Deacon about the situation concerning Mr. Timms and Randolph house. HR argued that because Deacon had come to their aid, brought help, and between the two of them (Nick and Deacon) had managed to kill a Courser that would have surely killed High Rise, Jolene, and Drummer Boy, that Deacon had a right to know what was going on in The Railroad. Especially because it concerned him. 

High Rise has since received a summons to HQ and nothing’s been mentioned to Deacon about Randolph or Timms. Maybe they want to talk with HR first to see what kind of reaction they might expect from Deacon. High Rise offers to mess with them slightly so they can’t prepare properly for Deacon’s eventual recall to The Switchboard.

“Only as long as it doesn’t get you in shit, pal.”

“Fuck that, I’m already in shit over telling you about Timms. What are they gonna do? Fire me? From my own damn safehouse? _Please._ ”

Deacon laughs.

July brings communications from the Switchboard about the permanent agent Deacon is going to help get set up in Diamond City. There isn’t much in the report, save for a date and a rough time at which to meet the agent at Deacon’s dead drop site. He tells Nick about it a week later because the detective asked for a progress update. There doesn’t seem any harm in it and Nick is far better liked in Diamond City than him. If Nick treats this new agent well, the rest of town will (eventually) follow suit. 

_Why_ Nick asked about it another thing altogether. It is entirely possible that Nick wants to help Deacon get this new agent properly established in the city, but Deacon thinks there’s another motivation behind it. He has a few guesses as to what that might be.

That’s why he asks Nick to join him in waiting for the agent at Deacon’s dead drop.

Deacon sprawls on the bus stop bench by the rationing center, throwing both arms over the back of the bench. Nick leans against the inner wall of the shelter that protects the bench from the weather and lights a cigarette.

“You got a serious habit for someone who gets zero benefits from cigarettes. The tar and crap from those might actually cling to the inside of those things you call lungs,” Deacon says as he leans his head back and stares at the rusted ceiling of the bus stop shelter. “Course, you don’t use your lungs the same way we do, but still, you might wanna be careful.”

Nick stares at his lit cigarette. “Ya think? I did cut back. I was at two packs a day, but it was drivin’ Ellie crazy. Said I was feedin’ her habit.”

“How many did you smoke before? Ya know-” Deacon makes a lazy twirly gesture with his one hand. “-all this.”

Nick shrugs. “Who knows. That’s a helluva long time ago.”

“So you remember being a smoker, but not how many cigarettes you consumed in a day?”

“No. It was a lot, I think. Stress.”

“Judging from the habit you’re currently rocking, must have been.”

“Does it bother you?”

Deacon slouches on the bench further, enjoying the heat radiating off the metal sides of the shelter and scent of Nick’s cigarette. “Not even a little bit. Never been a smoker myself, but I do like the smell of freshly burnt tobacco.”

“That on account of your father? You said he was a doctor or was that bull too?”

“My dad really was a doctor; he gave me a lecture and everything! Though, by the time he did, I was old enough to not want to defy every piece of advice he gave me.” Deacon chuckles, remembering the stern conversation he had with James while standing in the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial. Then, he sobers. “He died not long after that.”

“Sorry to hear to that, kid.”

Deacon waves him off. “I’m not the first person with a sob story about their parents.”

There’s a moment of companionable silence, then Deacon leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasping in front of him.

“Hey, I just remembered that you gave me an all-access pass to everything there is to know about ‘Nick Valentine’ and I haven’t abused it one little bit. I think that should change right now.”

Nick chuckles. “Am I gonna regret givin’ you free rein over my past?”

“Probably.” Deacon rubs his hands together. “Where to start? I suppose with the most obvious: Who were you before the war?”

“Too easy, kid.”

“Hey, that’s just the warm-up question.”

Nick exhales a curl of smoke. “A cop. Here in Boston.”

“I coulda guessed that. So, does that mean ‘Nick Valentine’ is your real name?”

“Sure, you could say that. Why?”

Deacon gives Nick an incredulous look. “You’re shitting me, right? Nick _Valentine._ That’s got noir character written all over it!”

“It’s _Italian,_ you ass,” Nick says with a good-natured laugh. “Not everythin’ is a story.”

“Sure it is. ‘All the world’s a stage’, Nick.”

“’And all the men and women merely players’; yeah, I know, but life ain’t a fictional tale.”

“Some days it feels like it.” Deacon leans back on the bench. “So, here’s a medium difficulty one: how’d you go from flesh and blood to metal framing and coolant?”

“The Institute did that, kid. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Nick says as he flicks some ash onto the concrete.

“Duh,” Deacon says with a laugh. Despite saying he would answer any question, Nick’s being true to his investigator instincts and not letting anything go without a bit of a fight. “But how did they get that squishy human brain of yours on a hard drive?”

“How should I know? You’re the tech expert. If what you’re really asking is, ‘how did the Institute get a hold of ‘Nick Valentine the cop’ to make a copy of his brain’, well he was… _volunteered_ for some special kinda trauma therapy procedure at C.I.T. (as The Institute was known back then). They scanned his brain and then, much later, downloaded it onto the hardware that runs between my ears.”

“Why?”

Nick takes a long, last drag from his cigarette before crushing it on the ground. “Now there’s a question I’ve been tryin’ to answer for a long damn time. Why me? Why did they put some pre-war, flat-foot in here instead of a math genius or bioengineer? Doubt I’ll ever know.” He sighs. “Don’t get me wrong, I owe Nick everything; he was a helluva cop, had good instincts and a good heart, but…” Nick trails off and kicks a broken chunk of concrete out into the street.

“But you feel like a fraud.” Suddenly the words that Nick said to him back in Ticonderoga make sense. “That’s why you said that thing about both of us tryin’ to live outside the shadow of the past.” 

“Yeah. Nick’s the whole reason I pass as human, why I live comfy and cozy in Diamond City with other synths are shot on sight-”

“Now, I’m going to have to disagree with you there. Other synths, Gen 3s anyways, are shot because they are tryin’ to impersonate someone, not necessarily because they are synths. Though, because of all that replacing people stuff it’s kinda become one and the same.”

“Well, isn’t that what I’m doin’? Impersonating Nick Valentine? Replacing him? The only reason I don’t get shot is because he died when the bombs fell. There’s no one left alive that knew him, so I’m safe.”

Deacon shakes his head. “No. You are you. There isn’t a ‘Nick 1’ and a ‘Nick 2’; this isn’t a Doctor Seuss book. No Cat in a Hat is coming around the corner. Do you look different these days? Hell, yes, but I’ve spent a while observing you now, Nick, and I am certain that you got more than just the copied brain matter of Nick Valentine. You _are_ him, he’s you.” Deacon laughs a bit. “And since I’m on a Seussian theme here: ‘There is no one alive that’s you-er than you’.”

“I appreciate what you’re tryin’ to do, kid. Really, I do. But you don’t have to deal with someone else’s whole life trapped inside your skull. Whatever past you’re runnin’ from is of your own making; you were there, you can own all of it, even if you might not want to.” Nick stares out at the rationing site. “When I see flashes of Nick’s life before the war, it’s like watching a faded movie reel or having a dream where you can’t control what’s happening; you just have to watch as it all unfolds, apart from and yet part of the action.”

“Now, that sounds like a runtime error. The Institute probably messed up the transfer, or maybe it’s a glitch. No reason to base the whole ‘my life is a lie’ thing on. And believe me, I’ve been there.”

Nick laughs, surprised. “You’re just determined to have it your way, aren’t you, kid?”

“When I’m right? Uh, yeah.”

“I’ll...think on what you said.”

“Well then think on this: If the you before the war had been cryogenically frozen and woke up into this world, would he have done anything different than what you have? Personally, I think the answer is: ‘Not a damn thing’.” Deacon shrugs. “But you’ll have to come to that conclusion yourself.”

They fall back into a companionable silence for a while, waiting for The Railroad’s agent to meet them. 

Deacon’s basking in the moment, trying to hold on to it: the heat of the afternoon sun, the soft breeze winding through the burnt-out trucks and cars, the sound of Nick’s coolant pump ticking quietly away. He has to leave pretty soon and it’s starting to kill him. 

He wasted so much time being at odds with Nick, and now that they’re back to being friends Deacon doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to go back to playing nice with The Railroad, but he has to, if only so that he can be a representative for it when Nora wakes. He’s pretty sure they won’t see her value right away, so he’s going to have to convince them that everyone needs a Vault dweller on their side. 

Maybe he’s stacking the deck a bit with _two_ vaulties for The Railroad, but The Institute is a foe that is going to be very difficult to defeat. If it even can be, and he is going to do what he can in the meantime to make it as simple as possible for Nora to amass the resources she’ll need for that.

“I can hear that hamster wheel squeakin’ from here, kid. What’s on your mind?”

Deacon chuckles. “Cute, Nick. You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

“Made you laugh, didn’t I? Spill it.”

“Who says I’m thinkin’ anything? Maybe I’m just enjoyin’ the sun.” Deacon stretches out on the bench, tucking one arm behind his head (thankfully, he didn’t buckle on his tool belt for this short trip, just shoved a few plasma cells and a couple stims in his pockets, because it would have been really awkward trying to lie down with all that on). He plants his feet on the wall of the bus stop’s shelter, closes his eyes, and wishes he had a hat to cover his face with. 

“This mediation break brought to you by: ‘Hubris Comics’.”

He hears Nick snort in amusement. Then, after a moment, hears him moving. It sounds slow and lazy, so it can’t be the agent--not just yet. Suddenly, something soft and worn is placed on his face. It smells like radiation dust, cigarette smoke, and synthetic skin. When Deacon reaches up to touch it, he realizes it’s Nick’s hat. 

“You were lookin’ a little lonely there, kid.”

Deacon smiles and adjusts it so it better blocks the ambient light of the sun -trying not to smudge the lens of his sunglasses in the process. 

“Thanks.” He’s quiet for a few more moments before he speaks again. He’s touched by Nick’s gesture and willing to offer a bit of truth in exchange for it. “I was thinking, Nick, that we wasted too much time not having awesome adventures together, and now it's all comin’ to a close. I’m getting all pre-nostalgic in preparation for it bein’ all over.”

“You don’t have to go,” Nick says, voice low. “We could be partners; you already spend more than half your time at the agency. Hell, everyone already thinks we are since Charlie sewed that heart on your vest.”

“My brand.” Deacon taps it with a fond smile. “I can’t stay, though, if for no other reason than everyone there think’s I’m Rhett.” 

He has to go precisely because he _wants_ to stay.

“Please, kid. You could talk your way out of that one, easy. But you like runnin’ from life and damned if I know why.”

“Not life, Nick. Responsibility. Culpability. Accountability. All those pesky 'bilities'.”

There’s an impatient sound from Nick. “That _is_ life. That’s what make the good parts good.”

“And the bad parts bad. Tryin’ to avoid those; had enough of ‘em.”

“By missin’ out on all that’s good?” Nick asks, frustrated. It sounds like he’s saying _‘by missing out on me?’_

Deacon’s heart aches a little. Then again, he’s probably reading too much into it. Projecting. 

Nick’s right, though, he could talk his way out of the whole ‘Rhett’ thing, and he could tell The Railroad that he’s no longer interested in being a heavy for them. He could stay in Diamond City with Nick and have more awesome adventures together and occasionally help The Railroad (read: Ticonderoga), monitor his project, and help Nora find her way in the Commonwealth when she wakes.

However, he knows that should he do that, Nick will find out who he is _\--was,_ and ask why he isn’t doing more for the Commonwealth; why he just lets so many things slide when he could be helping. Because that’s Nick’s philosophy: help who needs help, and the whole Commonwealth needs the kind of help a Vault dweller brings. _Especially one with your kind of experience,_ The Wanderer whispers. Deacon ignores him.

“Says the guy who is begrudgingly taking the good that is ‘Nick Valentine’ while feeling unworthy of it, of _himself._ If I thought that the Wizard of Oz was a real guy, I would suggest a trip. We might both get something out of it.”

Nick sighs something under his breath that Deacon doesn’t quite catch. Then, “You gonna leave that ugly bird on my desk?”

“Hey, that’s a genuine piece of Americana right there. _Humphrey Bogart_ dropped it on his toe and bent the tail feathers. Don’t talk about my Falcon like that.” Deacon harrumphs. “Also, I am so not lugging a 50-pound lead bird from safehouse to safehouse, so yeah, I was gonna leave it behind.”

“'Leave it behind' or 'store for safe keepin' until you returned for it?”

 _‘Leave it behind’,_ Deacon thinks with no little sadness. He’d like the reminder of Nick, of the adventure that they in retrieving it, but it’s impractical in the extreme to take with him when he leaves Diamond City and even more so when he finally leaves the Commonwealth. Better that Nick keeps it and occasionally thinks fondly of him when he looks at it. 

Deacon is saved from actually having to lie to Nick in answer to that question when he hears Nick straighten and feels a tap on the leg. 

“Someone’s comin’.”

He quickly sits up, catching Nick’s hat as it falls from his face. Deacon tosses it back to Nick as he stands and drops his hand to his plasma pistol. He doesn’t see anything in the surrounding area, but he trusts that Nick heard something. After a couple of tense minutes, Deacon hears the steady _clip-clop_ of brahmin hooves on the pavement and shortly after sees a couple caravan guards, a young man with a little girl, and the brahmin itself plodding after them on a long rope.

The young man catches sight of Deacon and Nick and stops a little way from the bus stop. He ties the brahmin to the frame of an old car, has a short conversation with the guards, then him and girl join Deacon and Nick at the bus stop. There’s moment’s hesitation from the man, probably because he wasn’t expecting two people and well, most people need a moment to get used to the sight of Nick.

Deacon takes the lead, opening with the Railroad’s newest sign:

“Hey pal, been sightseein’ lately?”

New is maybe _too_ strong a word. He learned while he was building his computer at Ticonderoga, that the Railroad’s sign/countersign had been changed shortly after Deacon was assigned to Diamond City. Understandable, since he was banned from all safehouses and he had come up with that particular sign/countersign. Still, he is little ticked that it was High Rise who had to tell him that the sign had been changed all those months ago. More so because of what happened with Drummer Boy. 

If High Rise hadn’t guessed that Deacon hadn’t been told the new sign/countersign, that night would have gone completely differently. Deacon knows how poorly he would have reacted to finding out that High Rise had been killed by a Courser all because he hadn’t been kept in the loop. 

“Yeah, just walked the Freedom Trail.”

Successful counter-sign. 

Personally, Deacon thinks this sign/countersign is weak. There is the distinct possibility of running to a scaver who could very well give the same answer just by happenstance. He sees the appeal--after all Boston was fondly called ‘The Cradle of Liberty’--but that shouldn’t be a deciding factor in a sign/countersign. There is a reason why his sign has been a success for the last two years: it is foreign to most Commonwealthers. They don’t know who John Henry Eden was, hell, a lot of the Capital Wastelanders have forgotten who the President of the Enclave was. 

And if someone knew had heard of Eden, the question was phrased in the present. Not who _was_ the President of the United States, but who _is_ the President of the United States. Which would force someone to think about it for a moment or immediately answer in the negative, both clear indicators that said person wasn’t who you were looking for.

He feels like they gave up an excellent sign/countersign simply because of the message it sent: ‘We don’t trust Deacon’, and that’s annoying. Or maybe he’s just being too vain about the whole thing. 

Deacon gestures for the young man (he really can’t be any younger than Deacon himself, but Deacon certainly feels older than his 26 years; though this man has a kid, so it’s possible he feels the same way) to follow him and he leads the group to the front of an old bus next to the stop. Now they should be out of hearing range of the man’s guards.

He holds out his hand for the man to shake. “I’m Deacon, this here is Nick Valentine, and we’re your welcoming party.”

The man’s grip is firm, dry, with skin that’s cracked and slightly calloused; a fellow tinkerer. _Excellent._ Maybe the Railroad actually listened to his recommendation about a weapon’s dealer.

“Arturo Rodriguez. This is my daughter Nina.”

Arturo shakes Nick’s hand as his daughter eyes the detective speculatively. 

“Are you a synth?” she asks, skeptical.

Nick’s lips curl into a smile. “Yeah. Why? I’m not livin’ up to the hype?”

“Everyone says that synths look like us, but you don’t. Only…you don’t really look like a robot either.”

“I’d say that’s a ‘No’ on the hype,” Deacon says with a laugh. Then he takes a knee so he’s on Nina’s level. “Nick’s a special kinda synth. One-of-a-kind.” Deacon leans in conspiratorially. “And if you get on his good side, his friend Ellie makes _the_ best sweetrolls in the entire Commonwealth. He just might put in a good word for you.”

Nina narrows her eyes at him, but Deacon can see she’s interested. “How?”

“By being a good kid, a good person. Simple as that,” Nick replies.

She draws herself up. “I am a good kid. Dad says so all the time.”

“That you are,” Arturo says proudly and ruffles Nina’s hair. She looks smugly at Deacon and he laughs. 

“First sweetroll is on me, kiddo,” Deacon says.

Arturo and Deacon have a conversation about all the things the Railroad didn’t include in their various dead drop debriefs. They try and keep it brief; they don’t need impatient caravan guards coming around, wondering what's taking so long.

Deacon grins in triumph when Arturo tells him he’s a weapons merchant up from Quincy ( _Finally,_ he thinks, _The Railroad has decided to be sensible about something._ ) and that he wanted to relocate Diamond City for the school. 

“Quincy, huh? Yeah, your voice is familiar, probably bought plasma cells from you a few times.”

Arturo gives him a critical once-over, but there’s no recognition in his face. Though why would there be, Deacon changed his face when he was last in Quincy. “Yeah? Show me your piece; I never forget a gun.”

Deacon hands over his plasma pistol and Arturo turns it over in his hands, admiring the balance and the custom mods. He runs a thumb over the _Enclave_ stamp. 

“We did this last time too if I remember correctly,” Arturo says as he hands the pistol back. “I was pretty surprised when you bought my meager stock of cells. Not many people ‘round here have plasma weapons ‘cept the Gunners and none with that brand.”

(Yeah, he really should take some acid to it, but he likes the idea of Autumn spinning in his grave over all the various things he and Colonel's plasma pistol get up to.)

Arturo was a tourist for The Railroad in Quincy, but when they learned of that he was saving up caps to make the trip north and open a store in Diamond City, they approached him about taking on a larger roll. He was a little wary at first, still is, because of all things that are going on in University Point with The U.P. Deathclaws, and Diamond City’s known hate for synths after the infamous ‘Broken Mask’ incident of 2229--

A thought occurs to Deacon then, a fleeting moment of something that might be important or might mean nothing, but that was nearly 60-years-ago. Just like what happened in Vault 111. Then, he dismisses it as coincidence, not everything is connected. Like Nick said: not everything is a story.

After Deacon has explained that Arturo needs to talk with Geneva up in the Mayor’s office, they head back to the caravan. Geneva is the one that handles all permits and real estate transactions. She’s the practical and pragmatic sort, so Deacon warns Arturo not to try and charm her with pleasantries. A logical, detailed plan is what will sway her into selling a stall in the market with an adjoining house.

Deacon uses all his considerable charm on the caravan guards as they make their way to Diamond City gates. By the time they relinquish their duties and get paid for their services, they won’t remember much about the initial weirdness of their hired boss meeting with a stranger and a synth, just that Deacon made them laugh, had an easy smile, and promised to buy drinks at the Dugout Inn later that night. 

It’s amazing how much people are willing to forget if you make them like you.

And that’s how July passes: with Deacon and Nick bringing the welcome wagon for Arturo Rodriguez. Of course, it’ll take longer than just a month for Diamond City to welcome him as one of their own, but he already has a huge boon in his favour: Nina. People just can’t imagine that such a friendly and charming widower with a well-behaved daughter could be a synth, could be anything other that exactly what he appears to be: wholesome and wholly Commonwealthian.

Between Nina and Nick, Deacon imagines that Arturo will have Diamond City eating out of the palm of his hands in no time. Certainly quicker than it took for them to except Deacon, and that leaves him with the pleasant high of a job well-done. 

And the sad knowledge that it’s all coming to an end. 

Not right away of course; Desdemona had said that this was going to be a year-long mission, and as such he doesn’t expect to be called back to The Switchboard before October. He wouldn’t want to leave any sooner than that anyways, for the sake of appearances. He and Arturo have come up with a simple, but convincing back story about Rhett knowing Arturo back in Quincy when he was a caravan guard down there: 

They’ve always been friendly, hell, merchants usually try to get on good with the guards protecting their shipments and during his nearly two weeks, uh… _vacation_ from Diamond City, Rhett met up with Arturo down in Quincy, told him about the need for a decent weapons merchant in town. Arturo, who was planning to make the move next year, decided to move up his timeline. Without the added competition from another weapons merchant, getting set up in Diamond City would be much easier than he initially thought.

Arturo is a helluva salesman and as such, a bullshitter of the finest class, so between him and Deacon the story is quickly circulated. Even better, Deacon and Arturo _do_ get along. The man has a quick wit and a love of weapons, and the two of them spent many nights in the Dugout Inn debating the various merit of pistols, rifles, shotguns, and energy weapons (within a reasonable time period, of course, the man does have a daughter to get home to).

Truly, The Railroad could not have found a better agent for Deacon to install in Diamond City and he sings the praises of Arturo in his July report.

\- - - - -

August is sweltering.

Hotter than anyone can remember in recent memory. Myrna can barely keep fans in stock, and Doctor Duff and Professor Scara pull double duty as repair jockeys for any fans that have worn out due to the constant strain that the August heatwave has brought. 

The market is dead during the day. 

It’s just too damn hot to shop in the afternoon, so most people try and get their shopping done during the early hours of the mornings and then return to the shelter of shade for the rest of the day. Takashi’s noodle business is hit particularly hard, since who wants to eat hot noodles when the temperature is hitting 95˚F plus in the heat of the afternoons and not getting much cooler at night? 

Concrete buildings are in high demand; like the Dugout Inn, Fallon’s Basement, Nick’s agency, and any of the passageways around the outside of the Diamond City field where shade and cool stone might be found. The heat even drives the lofty Upper-standers from their perch above the city and forces them to slum with the Lower-fielders in search of relief.

Sun grumbles constantly about people getting sunstroke, severe sunburns, and suffering dehydration. He’s constantly inundated with people not taking proper precautions against the heat and Deacon’s pretty sure that he’s not sleeping well, even in the cool basement of his clinic because his temper is worse than ever. Though, that could just be frustration at the general populace’s idiocy.

The transient farmers are having a hard time keeping this year’s crop from dying--the city is on water restrictions due to the rapid evaporation of the water in the tanks and a lack of rain. They begin packing scraps of plastic and sheets of metal around the plants to help prevent water from evaporating from the ground and set up tents to protect the plants from the harsh burn of the sun. If the crops don’t make it, it will be a very tough winter for the whole city.

The heat and lack of water for regular bathing means that Diamond City is has taken on a particularly nasty smell of unwashed bodies. He can only imagine how bad it must be in a place like Goodneighbour; at least they have a sewer system here in Diamond City.

Deacon feels the worst for the Diamond City Security: in their heavy pads and armour, having to stand out in the heat in that, even in the shade, it has got to be sweltering. At least their barracks are in the old underground parking garage.

Diamond City life crawls to a stop in the heatwave. 

The agency is dead. No one wants to brave the heat of August from anywhere further than a walk across town, so that leaves Ellie and Nick to work on retooling their filing system. Something the two of them have been talking about since Deacon arrived in Diamond City. 

Deacon takes up residence in the agency for the month of August and gives out his room in the Dugout Inn to a few of the transient farmers so they can have a cool place to sleep at night. Deacon and Nick also move Ellie’s bed down to the lower level of the agency so she’s out of the rising heat. They could almost be having a month long slumber party if it weren’t for the cloying heat and lack of bath water.

He doesn’t even visit Ticonderoga in August, it too damn hot to travel anywhere right now, and going alone at night through the ruins of Boston is never a good idea. Besides, he shudders at the thought of how hot it must be that high off the ground.

It’s during this time that Deacon learns about Eddie Winters.

Deacon’s been buying hot bowls of noodles from Takashi in the morning and bringing them back to the agency to cool until lunch time so that he and Ellie have something to eat. While not cold, the broth and noodles aren’t adding to their body heat, and they even taste good cool.

Deacon offered the first day to help Ellie and Nick with their filing, but he cannot, for the life of him, figure out how they want it. The way to file something that makes sense to him is nowhere near what Ellie and Nick consider the proper way to file. He gives up and leaves them to their convoluted system. He subsequently offers his services to Duff and Scara and takes some of the fan repairs off their hands. 

He’s currently trying to pester Ellie into stopping and having lunch with him because he’s starving and bored with working on fans, but she is determined to finish the stack of files she has in her lap before settling down to lunch. 

When she picks up the next to last file in her stack, she frowns and holds it up for Nick to see. 

“Where do you want this one? Are we considering it ‘active’ or ‘closed’?”

Nick rolls his chair over and plucks the file from her hands. “Oh,” he says as he reads the tab. “This one.”

The tone Nick uses peaks Deacon’s interest and he rolls over to peer at the file. 

“Eddie Winter,” Deacon reads. “Sounds like a mob kingpin. Now if he was an ‘Edward Winter’, he’d be a politician.”

Ellie and Nick both give him strange looks. 

“What? Is he house-husband or something? Friend of a friend that I shouldn’t be making jokes about?” He slaps his own hand. “Bad Deacon.”

Nick clears his throat. “Uh, no. You were right.”

“Seriously, Deacon, how do you do that?” Ellie shakes her head in disbelief. “I swear you have a sixth sense about people.”

“Whoa, wait. This guy, this Eddie Winters, _was_ a mob kingpin?” Deacon lets out a surprised huff of laughter. “What happened? Concrete galoshes. Tell me it was concrete galoshes. Uh…wait, that sounded wrong. Almost like I wanted him to ‘sleep with the fishes’, or someone to ‘rub him out’, or ‘take a dirt nap’.” Deacon looks between Nick and Ellie. “Feel free to speak up anytime here, or I’ll keep making horrible clichés.”

There’s a moment of silence as Nick and Ellie share a wordless conversation. Then, Ellie tosses the last file on the desk, stands, grabs her noodle bowl, and heads to the door.

“Tom’s got the afternoon off and he’s probably back in the barracks now. I think I’ll have lunch with him today.” She gives Deacon a stern look. “Don’t touch my piles.” 

She snags Deacon’s sunglasses from the next to the other noodle bowl with a grin, and then she’s gone; only a wave of heat from the opened door lingers in her absence. 

Um...what was that about? Deacon looks over at Nick.

“Was it something I said? Or how I smell?” Deacon lifts up the collar of his t-shirt and gives himself cursory sniff. It’s not great.

Nick doesn’t seem to have heard him; he’s staring intently at the file. Deacon debates the merits of continuing to be a childish jokester or simply waiting for Nick to come back from whatever place his mind has gone to. The latter easily wins out, but he is still starving, so instead of waiting stoically, he quietly slurps noodles until Nick is ready to talk.

“Wanna help me with something?” Nick finally asks.

Deacon looks up from his noodle bowl. “Do you even need to ask? The answer will always be ‘yes’.”

Nick gives him a faint smile. “There’s…there’s this piece of Nick Valentine history-” Deacon’s feels a flash of annoyance that Nick is stuck on the assertion that he and pre-war Nick are two different people, but he tries to not let it show on his face. “-that I’ve been meaning to put a bow on for a while now. Once upon a time in the land of Boston-”

“Oo! A fairy tale! Nick, you know how much I love those,” Deacon interrupts with a grin. He’s trying to break the black look that’s on Nick’s face. 

“Then, shut up and let me finish, yeah?” His voice his hard, but he’s smirking so Deacon counts it as a win. “Once upon a time in the land of Boston, back in the days when nuclear war was a horizon worry and Nuka Cola sold for a buck a piece, there lived a king of organized crime.”

Deacon rolls his chair around to the other side of Ellie’s desk and props his chin eagerly in both his hands. That earns him a slightly wider smile.

“His name was Eddie Winter and he was the biggest and badest of them all.”

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” Deacon says in a singsong voice and Nick fondly shakes his head. 

“He hurt a lot of innocent people, but was on the government’s stoolie list and never faced the justice he deserved. All he ever cared about was himself and escapin' the courts, and ole Eddie incriminated a lot of ‘friends’ to do just that. Then, a larger threat loomed on the horizon, and all Eddie cared about was survivin’ it.”

Deacon’s shoulders tense. If Nick is about to say that Eddie Winter lives on in some sort of twisted virtual simulation, he is going to have to bow out. He still has nightmares about Vault 112 when he is particularly stressed and he can’t add any more psychotic little girls to the fuel. His sanity won’t survive it. 

“So he built himself a personal shelter beneath the sub-shop he used as a front and sealed himself up in it. The arrogant bastard wanted to cheat death, to live forever, so he could one day come out of that shelter and start his crimes anew in this brave new world.

“Only ole Eddie didn’t want to spend time as a frozen banana, or get his brain scanned by the eggheads at C.I.T. No. He invested his money in a sick, twisted radiation experiment.”

Deacon relaxes slightly. Then, realization dawns and he pulls back, shocked. “Are you sayin’ what I think you’re saying, Nick?”

“Sure am. Eddie Winter went and turned himself into a ghoul, 200-years before it was fashionable. Hell, he was probably the first one.”

Why would someone choose to be a ghoul? Not that there was anything wrong with ghouls, but why would anyone _want_ to look like the rotting corpse of a leper? He’d certainly never met a ghoul who liked their looks, most just accepted it was a curse to balance out a long life span. 

“It’s been 200-years, Nick. He’s probably long gone. Hell, he could be dead.”

Nick shakes his head. “No. I _-Nick,_ spent years with the BPD tryin' to build a case against him. He’s an egomaniacal monster who wants to make his mark on the world. He’s still here, in Boston, because it was the seat of his empire and he means to resurrect it from the ashes.”

“So how do you plan on findin’ him? If ole' Eddie is now ghoulified and he won’t match your pre-war memories.”

“I don’t have to find him, kid. I know where he is.” Nick leans forward, planting his elbows on Ellie’s desk. “I’m convinced he’s still in that shelter of his, just waiting for the world to regain a measure of its civility so he can control it in luxury. I want to find him and kill him before that happens.”

Deacon stares at Nick for a moment, taking in the rigid lines of his shoulders and the way his mouth is turned down in a frown. He hasn’t even taken out a cigarette for this talk, and that more than anything is making Deacon wonder what’s behind this piece of history. 

“Why?” Deacon asks, moving one hand rest on the desk and using the other to hold up the side of his face.

Nick’s frown deepens. “Whadda mean, why? Did you miss the part where Eddie is a monster waiting for his perfect moment to prey on the Commonwealth?”

“No. I wasn’t asking why we should kill Eddie, _that_ seems abundantly obvious. What I meant was, why is this is important to you? Why does this piece of your past need a conclusion?”

Nick looks at the cinderblocks behind Deacon’s head and doesn’t immediately offer an explanation.

“Hey, you gave me _carte blanche_ on your past, remember?” Deacon says when several silent moments have passed. “And don’t tell me it’s because you’re a good cop who wants to put a cold case to rest; I won’t buy it.” More silence. “Come now, Mr. Holmes, tell Dr. Watson all your troubles. Preferably before I start doodling hearts on all your case files.”

That, finally, earns him a faint smile. 

“I’ve got these memories…of a girl. My girl. They’re not really my memories, I know that. They’re Nick’s,-” Deacon might have interrupted here to object to that sentiment, but he’s not sure Nick will continue talking if he does, so he keeps his peace. “-but the girl…she was real. She was beautiful and innocent…and Winter killed her. He killed her to send a message to Nick.”

Empathy wells up in Deacon; they really are a pair, aren’t they? He reaches out his free hand and rests it on the crook of Nick’s elbow; he gives Nick a sympathetic squeeze. Now he gets why Ellie left, she’s probably already heard the story and knew how hard it would be for Nick to talk with an audience. Does Nick get how lucky he is to have her?

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Nick says, voice rough. “I know I shouldn’t get so worked up over memories that aren’t even mine, or over a girl I never had, but if nothin’ else, Jenny Lands deserves to see her killer brought to justice.”

Deacon’s patience finally cracks. “Stop that. Don’t you get it? You _are_ Nick Valentine. If The Institute scanned my brain and stuck me in a synth after my death, I wouldn’t be any less ‘Deacon’ than you are Nick. It would just be a new lease on life. Think of how many people try to cheat death and you got to!”

“It’s not that simple-”

“Yes, it is. You pulled a computer assisted Rip-Van-Winkle, _simple_ as that. Do we have to have another conversation on humanity, Nick? I thought I’d made it clear that humanity is the desire to be more than you are and to help others achieve that too; you’ve got both those things in spades.”

Nick sighs. He’s clearly not convinced, but unwilling to keep fighting Deacon on the matter.

“Look, if nothin’ else, can you please stop runnin’ yourself down in my presence? You’re givin’ me a twitch.”

He demonstrates said twitch and Nick chuckles.

“For the sake of your face, kid, I’ll stop doin’ it aloud.”

“Thank you. Now, back to Eddie Winter. We packin’ up for a hunt after this heatwave lifts?”

“Well, there’s a catch.”

Deacon rolls his eyes. “There always is.”

“Winter sealed himself away behind a complex lock. No keyhole for someone to try an’ pick, and no terminal to hack either.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Are we going to have to blow up a power plant and cut power to an entire city block or something? Am I going to have to pull out my 'License to Kill'?”

Nick smirks. “Nothin’ that grandiose, kid. Winter left us the key.”

He explains about the holotapes that Winter recorded for his stoolie work for the B.A.D.T.F.L. and how on each one he left a number that was part of the code to open the door to his personal shelter. Deacon shakes his head. Why would anyone be that stupid? If you managed to get away with murder, racketeering, money laundering, etc., why on Earth would you leave the cops, correction, _the cop_ with a nasty grudge against you a way to eventually find you and kill you? 

Nick calls it arrogance. Deacon thinks it’s sheer idiocy. They agree it’s a little of both. 

So first things first, they have to find the holotapes and get the numbers to get the code. Nick believes that they are still in evidence lock-up in the Boston area police stations; it was where he found the first one, and an entire pack of ferals. Oddly, enough it wasn’t Precinct 8, the police station just outside the city, but rather a far-flung station on the west side of Boston.

Deacon questions why Nick hasn’t been to Precinct 8.

“Because this is a personal vendetta. I got a lotta other cases to deal with and it just didn’t seem right to put them on hold for a 200-year-old grudge.” Nick lights a cigarette and this conversation finally feels like it starting to become normal again. “Also, I checked the logs at that precinct, and unfortunately, the tapes are spread all over Boston and beyond. That’s the other reason I haven’t moved on this. Too dangerous to get to some of those places, especially alone.”

“But it’s all okay now because I’m here to help you kill ferals?” Deacon asks with a smirk.

Nick blows out a curl of smoke and shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then I suggest we raid Precinct 8 tonight when it cools off a bit. I’m stir crazy hangin’ around here all day every day, and I could use some fresh air from outside Diamond City.”

“It is gettin’ pretty rank around here.”

Deacon sits back with a mock look of hurt on his face. “Ouch. Low blow, Nick. If I could bath more than once a week, I would. First rain we get, Ellie is gonna have to fight me for that gravity shower.”

He really does hate being in this constant state of sweaty, dirtiness. A holdover from his days as a spoiled vault kid, he’s sure. God, what he wouldn’t give for running water right about now.

Nick chuckles. “No, she won’t. You’re more of a gentleman than that.”

Deacon snorts. “Shows what you know, Valentine.”

Ellie arrives back after her lunch, but Nick tells her to go and spend time with Tom. He’s done working on refiling all their cases and if Ellie starts up again, Nick will have to join her to stave off the guilt of watching her do it alone. She smiles and shakes her head. 

Deacon mentions that he and Nick are going to check out the precinct outside of town tonight when the temperature drops somewhat, and that gets him soft smile in return. He knows she is probably dying to hear about everything they talked about and that sums it all up nicely. 

Ellie stays long enough to put all her things away, stack her piles of folders in places where they won’t likely be knocked over by a stray foot or chair wheel and heads back out into the hot afternoon. Taking Deacon’s sunglasses with her. He would be annoyed if it were anyone else, but hell, she needs them more than he does at this point. It's brighter than the surface of the sun out there.

In lieu of anything else to do, and Deacon not wanting to look another fan part for the rest of the day, he teaches Nick to play _Spite and Malice._ (Deacon does know how to play _Caravan;_ he learnt it from the caravan group he travelled with on his way up from the Capital Wasteland. 

They [there was three caravaners that travelled in the group that Deacon joined] learnt it from another caravaner, who had learnt it from _another_ caravaner, who learnt it from a Crimson Caravaner out west. It was all the three of them would play, and if you wanted some campfire entertainment it was either that or a combat jack. 

So he learnt to play _Caravan;_ he built a deck and kicked ass at it, since all it was, was basic math--he aced that in the vault. But he never liked the game. The cobbled together decks that defied all normal logic of how a 52 card deck was supposed to be put together really irked him. He did, however, like collecting cards to make _real_ decks out of.)

They play it for the rest of the afternoon until Deacon gets hungry and needs to go to The Dugout Inn for some chow.

The Dugout Inn is serving cold brahmin sandwiches with fresh mutfruit. The same thing they’ve had most of the week, but that’s okay with Deacon. He could probably eat bread from the new Diamond City bakery for the rest of his life and die happy. Nick and he sit at Deacon’s usual table as Deacon eats his supper and they shoot the shit. Pretty much what they’ve been doing all day. 

Nick usually spends time in the Dugout Inn once or twice a week to chat with Vadim and anyone else that happens to catch his attention. He does this so that in the event he has to come into the bar for a case, his presence goes relatively unnoticed. If he never set foot in the bar save to work on a case, people would always know what he was doing there and Nick likes to maintain a certain level of discretion.

Ellie and Tom come in about half way through Deacon’s meal and join them at the table. Shortly after, Piper does to (sans Nat, who is currently hanging out with Nina -which Piper thinks is fantastic, because it means she doesn’t have to worry about feeding her) and they slowly grow to a loud boisterous group of people, drawn in by Nick and Deacon. 

Vadim is standing over Tom’s shoulder, telling a joke he heard from a recent caravaner; Becky and Charlie Fallon drew up chairs sometime after Piper; Sun is leaning against one of the support columns, listening and occasionally smirking -that’s practically laughter from him; even Yefim is hovering nearby.

Arturo also makes a stop at their table for about 15 minutes sometime around eight, if the clock above the bar is accurate. When he leaves, Piper does too. She’s feeling a bit guilty about leaving Nat in Arturo’s care for most of the day, but it did allow her to get her latest column done, so she’s not _that_ guilty.

Vadim takes her place and they continue talking and laughing well into the evening, the bartender frequently having to get up and do his job before coming back to their table; eventually it’s too busy at the bar for him to return. The Fallon’s are the next to bow out; Charlie laughingly citing old age and the need for sleep. Then, Sun; who slips quietly away, and probably went unnoticed by everyone in the bar but Deacon and Nick. Tom and Ellie are last; as they are leaving, she tells them to be careful when they go out to Precinct 8. Tom tells her not to worry so much, the area is patrolled by the DCS and short of a few radroaches, there’s nothing worth mentioning. 

Ellie pats his arm and ignores him. Reiterating that Deacon and Nick need to be careful. When they’re gone, Deacon breaks into laughter and Nick smiles. 

“Over 200-years-old, and that slip-of-a-girl is always tellin’ me to be careful. Has been from the beginnin’, in fact.”

They stop off at the agency to grab their weapons, and Deacon slides his armoured vest on. It cooler outside now that the sun is long gone from the sky, but his vest is still an uncomfortable extra layer in the warm night. He would be crazy to leave Diamond City without it though, even to the relative safety of the roads around the city. Besides, if Ellie caught him without it, she’d surely kill him even if the ferals or raiders don’t.

They head out of the city in comfortable silence, pausing long enough to give Sammy his customary pat, even though they aren’t technically leaving the borders of the city. No point in pressing their luck. 

Precinct 8 isn’t much to look at. There's a small ground floor with a few cells, a terminal, and not much else. There’s also a boarded up door that likely leads to the old detective offices upstairs. The DCS probably did that to prevent ferals from claiming the space. While Nick checks out the terminal, Deacon pokes around the cells, looking for anything interesting and using Nick’s lighter to see in the dark.

After a few moments of keyboard clacking, Nick makes a noise of frustration. “It’s not in in the evidence lock-up. The terminal says they lost the damn thing.” Deacon pokes his head around the corner to see Nick bang his fist on the desk. “Who the hell were these clowns? Didn’t they know how to follow the chain of custody?”

“Maybe they were so inept that the holotape isn’t actually gone and it’s just under a desk or something,” Deacon says. “Come and check the place out. You see better in the dark than I do.”

Nick grumbles his assent and stands. Deacon flips the lid on Nick’s lighter to save the fluid and takes a seat on the desk next to the door. He’ll just get in Nick’s way if he stumbles around in the gloom with only the light of a flame to guide him. Nick methodically searches the ground floor, muttering under his breath unkind things about the police officers that used to man this precinct. Deacon chuckles lowly at Nick’s _creativity._

He’s starting to wonder if they’ll need to break open the door to the upper levels when Nick makes a noise of triumph. He makes his way back to Deacon, who flips Nick’s lighter open again and lights it. On the holotape the faded scrawl of some long dead police officer marks this tape as: _EdWi-08._

Perfect.

Deacon flips the lighter closed and Nick tucks the tape in his pocket. 

In the gloom of the precinct, Nick’s eyes glow brightly; casting a yellow light along the planes of his face and hat. It’s striking. It’s _always_ striking, but it’s not often that Deacon has a moment of quiet in the night to appreciate it. Hell, the last time they did this, they were running from a Courser; not the best time to wax poetic. He tries to capture the image in his mind for future remembrance; this will probably be the last time he sees Nick like this. 

Deacon stands from the desk after a moment or two has passed; it seems silly for them to keep standing in the dark, staring at one another. Plus, he saw the way Nick’s mouth was curving into a smirk, he was a few seconds away from a witty remark that would probably leave Deacon reeling in embarrassment over being so obviously crushing on him and itching to ask Nick to put his caps where his mouth his.

And…Deacon probably shouldn’t have thought of Nick’s mouth in that context. _Great._ Now how will he sleep?

He steps out into the street, Nick following closely. Deacon pauses for a moment and looks up at the sky. In Diamond City, you can’t see the stars for the massive lights that bear down on the city at night. Here, even this close to the Wall, the stars are a brilliant, scattered mess of jewels in the sky.

Deacon has a bit of a love/hate relationship with the sky. Being a vault kid, he never feels quite safe out in the open; he’s never totally comfortable without close walls and low ceilings, but he cannot deny, nor does he want to, the majesty of the sky. It’s beautiful.

It’s one thing to see the sky in a holovid, or read about it in a story or poem, but it is truly something else to see it for yourself for the first time. Even the grey-green sky that’s in the Capital--an ugly thing most of the time, but during sunsets and sunrises, it is truly something else. The radiation dust in the air refracts the colours of the sky, making the whole thing shimmer with otherworldliness. Not like out here; the Commonwealth has Old-World blue skies--as long as a radiation storm isn’t rolling in.

Nick stops next to him and looks up at the sky with Deacon. “Never used to be able to see the stars from the city.”

“Still can’t,” Deacon says and points to the Wall.

“True, but-”

“I know. You meant Boston.” Deacon’s quiet for a moment. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Most people don’t appreciate it, but, hey, that’s not their fault.”

Nick turns to look at Deacon. “Why do ya say that?”

Deacon leans against the brick wall of Precinct 8. “They spend their whole lives looking at it; hell, Nick, you got two lives to appreciate the sky, but you don’t. Not really. Wasters watch the sky for storms and changes in weather, but not for the simple sake of watching something beautiful.”

“Yeah? And what makes you so special, kid?” Nick asks, amusement clear in his voice.

Deacon makes a twirly motion next to his temple and whistles. “I’m a half a bubble off plum.” He laughs. “To get out of the Dugout Inn the night we…killed that Courser, I told Vadim that I was going stargazing out on the roof of this place.”

Nick chuckles. “You hate heights.”

“I know! But I’m just odd enough that something like that doesn’t phase people. They just go, ‘oh that, Rhett, he’s a card’ or ‘that Deacon, he’s so weird, with his Shakespeare quotes, witticisms, and pathological inability to tell the truth’.”

A heavy moment settles on them as that last part hangs in the air. He probably shouldn’t have said that, but he can’t take it back. Nick makes him say a lot of things he shouldn’t. Makes him _want_ things he can’t have. 

“Hey, it was my birthday in July,” Deacon says, trying to lift the mood.

“Happy Birthday, kid.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since someone said that to me? It’s practically a foreign language now.” 

He’s trying for levity, but it comes off sounding profoundly sad. Probably because he thought of the last birthday he had in the vault and how distracted James was that day. Nineteen! It should have been the beginning of something, but it ended up being the end. The next month his dad left the vault and everything came crashing down.

He’s celebrated birthdays since then, sure--Megaton threw two great parties for him that were a blast--but since he left the Capital, it’s just been him and the simple acknowledgement that he’s now a year older and more like his dad than ever. Depressing, to say the least.

Nick settles against the wall next to him, close enough that their arms brush against one another. “That’s a shame.”

Deacon sighs. “The real shame is, Nick, I’ll probably never hear it again. But hey, that’s my own doing, so don’t feel sorry for me.”

Nick leans into him; just enough to force Deacon to either lean back and counter the weight of Nick’s body or slide away and force Nick to straighten. Deacon selfishly leans back; he just wants a moment or two like this to remember when he’s gone. The one in the sun at the bus stop and now this one, here in the dark. 

“Stay,” Nick says, voice a low rumble. 

He’s hasn't said it like that before. It was always left up to Deacon to decide if he should stay, with the assurance that Nick would welcome him if _he_ decided. Now, Nick is asking that he stay and his heart stutters a bit. _Heaven help this weak man,_ he thinks.

Nick looks him, the brim of his hat brushing against Deacon’s forehead, his eyes bright in the darkness, and Deacon panics. If Nick kisses him in this moment, he isn’t going to be able to deny him anything; even though he knows it will end in disaster and he can’t do that again. He can’t give someone his heart and have it given back when he doesn’t live up to what they want or fit into their life the way he should. 

He never really recovered after Amata told him not to return to the vault; when she told him that they couldn’t be together anymore because it would be seen as him trying to influence them, _her._ He didn’t stop loving her, he couldn’t, not with the hope that one day they would make into the Capital Wasteland and they could be a happy vault family again. That’s why he spent time propped against the vault door, talking to her during those clandestine meetings--Deacon’s always been a planner; he plays the long game and he hoped that if he just kept in contact, if he showed he’d always be there, then one day he’d get all that he wanted.

It was also why he ended up sleeping with Sarah Lyons. He acknowledges now that she was a back-up-plan just in case he didn’t get what he really wanted. At the time, he knew he wasn’t really being fair to Sarah because he wasn’t sleeping with her on her own merits--plenty though there were, but because she reminded him of Amata. Even with her shock of blonde hair and blue eyes, they were so alike in many ways. Right up to the ultimate betrayal of his trust. 

God, he really has a type, doesn’t he?

“I can’t,” Deacon croaks as dozens of memories collide and crash behind his wide eyes.

“Why not?”

He almost says, _‘Because I want to stay.’_ , but through sheer force of will clamps down on that sentence. Nick will kiss him for sure if those words tumble out of his mouth and he needs to keep some semblance of distance from him. Even if it means hurting Nick.

Given what he now knows about Nick, that is so ridiculously easy to do. He could take all of Nick’s insecurities about himself and flay him with razor-sharp words about a sad, little synth who is trying to be the human its memories tell it is. Deacon won’t (the very thought of it makes him sick), but he does use a piece of it to push Nick back. 

“Because I’ll regret it.”

 _‘Regret you.’_ The unspoken words are clear behind Deacon’s sentence. _‘Regret a synth who is trying so hard to be a ‘real boy’.’_ He doesn’t mean it like that, but he knows Nick will take it that way.

Nick rears back, looking like Deacon’s punched him in the gut. The shock on his face quickly morphing into hurt anger.

“Please don’t ask again,” Deacon says, voice even, bordering on cold, even as his heart breaks; even as The Lone Wanderer rails in Deacon’s head calling his all manner of names for making Nick look at him like that.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Nick snaps. “I won’t.”

\- - - - -

At the end of August, they finally get rain. Four blessed days of rain that leave the entire city a sloppy mess of mud and buoyed spirits. 

Deacon, in particular, is grateful for the rain. It’s the signal that the heatwave is over and that the weather is about to give way to the slightly cooler temperatures of September. Which means that he can move back into the Dugout Inn and get out of the agency. 

It’s been a tense week since he and Nick went out Precinct 8, to say the least. 

Deacon falls back into his old habit of pretending that nothing is wrong and that only drives Nick further way. It’s a good thing, really. Helluva lot easier to leave a place where you’re no longer welcome. Ellie has no idea why Nick is mad, or why there seems to be an extra edge to all of Deacon’s jokes, but she knows that whatever happened, happened the night they left the city. 

She’s frustrated with them both and would probably give Deacon a lecture about being a total moron if she could peg him down for longer than a few minutes at a time, but he’s pretty good about being absent from the agency more or less all the time now. Unfortunately, it’s not just Ellie that’s noticed that Nick and Deacon are at odds again. 

It feels like the whole of Diamond City is reacting to their problems.

Piper corners him in the Dugout Inn a week into September.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” she asks with no little annoyance and she flops into a chair at Deacon’s table. He had been trying to eat his lunch in peace.

Deacon furrows his brow. “Uh, what? Who?”

Piper rolls her eyes. “God. Do you get a perverse sort of enjoyment out of being completely and purposely obtuse, or something? _You. Nick._ Ringin’ any bells?”

Deacon sits back and taps his lips. “That’s the detective, right? Synth, ‘bout my height, with yellow eyes?”

“Yeah, you idiot. _Him._ The sarcastic, sometimes snarky, neon love of your life. Seriously, you two are killin’ me with this shit.” She angrily lights a cigarette. “First you’re good, then you’re not, then you are, and now you’re not. How the hell am I supposed to write a sappy piece in the _Publick_ about ‘love conquering all’ if the two of you won’t get to conquering?”

“That sounds vaguely raunchy. I didn’t realize you wrote such… _titillating_ material, Piper.”

“Ugh!” Piper throws up her hands in frustration. “Men. You are all idiots, but especially you and Nick.”

Deacon gives her a brilliant grin that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Fine. If you want to be miserable and alone, I can’t stop you.” She stands. “But just for the record, if you let him slip through your fingers you are, officially, _the dumbest_ smart person I know.”

Piper leaves him to a lunch he no longer wants to eat.

The next day, Charlie finds him chatting with Arturo at his new market stall. The weapons merchant doesn’t mention anything about Nick and Deacon’s current strained relations, and Deacon is glad for it. In fact, Arturo avoids the subject altogether, which suits Deacon just fine, thank you very much. 

Charlie, doesn’t however, and pulls Deacon aside after his warm good morning.

“I was probably being pretty presumptuous before,” Charlie says, “Becky tells me all the time that I should mind my own business, sometimes kindly, sometimes not.” He smiles fondly, then sobers. “I can take it off and put something a little less…flamboyant on, if you want.”

“Huh?” Deacon asks, genuinely confused for a moment.

Charlie points to the heart on Deacon’s vest. _Oh._ Normally, he doesn’t wear the vest around town, but he’s going to the dead-drop to check for a reply to his monthly report today.

Deacon’s hand moves up to touch the fabric heart. “No. No, it’s fine, Charlie. Don’t worry about it. Things are bound to turn around,” he says with a grin and doesn’t feel the least bit bad about lying to Charlie about it.

Not in face of the relief that flickers over his face.

Before Deacon makes it to the rationing site, he already knows that this is the end. He feels it in the shift of the wind that’s blowing in the acidic smell of a coming radiation storm. When he plugs the holotape into the terminal at the rationing site the message is thus: 

September 8th, 2284

From HQ

Effective immediately, you are being recalled to HQ. Report A.S.A.P.

-Sly Nicolas

Deacon, Kilo is having major troubles. We need your expertise there. Please report to HQ for a debrief -Desdemona

He thinks, judging from the way the second message is weirdly formatted, that Desdemona hastily attached it. He immediately bristled at the tone that the first message seemed to imply, but Dez’s words calm him somewhat. Probably the reason she attached them--she’s always been a keen judge of character.

Once he’s re-read the message a couple of times, to let it sink in that that’s he’s finally returning to The Switchboard, Deacon wipes the holotape. Then, he grabs an ancient lunch box and dumps his entire collection of holotapes into to it. He picks up the lantern that sits on the desk, then the lunch box, and heads over to the bus stop. 

Deacon rubs the chalk railsign off the stop, and checks for anything else that might be out of place. Satisfied he’s removed all traces of this site as a dead drop, Deacon heads back to Diamond City. 

He begins packing the things he’s going to take with him in his long-haul backpack--long since cleared of the weapons part he and MacCready had scrounged from the Gunners. Anything he doesn’t need, he’ll sell to Percy tonight. He won’t leave tomorrow, but probably the next day. He needs enough time to get a proper story together about why he’s leaving. 

Frankly, his strained relationship with Nick is currently working in favour here. If he was still paling around with Nick, people would wonder why he was so willing to break up such a dream team. However, since the two of them are barely holding civilized conversations, people will readily accept that he has decided to pick up and leave.

As he’s packing his meager clothing in the bag, he realizes that he’s missing a dress shirt. He counts again, including the one he’s currently wearing, but he comes up short again. Shit. He probably left it the agency during his slumber party; it could have gotten mixed in with Nick's own things.

Actually, now that he thinks of it, Ellie did mention something about a few pieces of clothing he left there, but at the time he was trying to avoid getting caught talking with her for longer than a few seconds and more or less ignored her words. 

The sensible thing would be to go over there and cheerfully chatter for a while about inconsequential things and then offhandedly mention that he thinks he might have left a few things at the agency. But the very idea of facing Nick with the knowledge that he’s leaving, and that he’s going to be leaving things badly between them, turns his stomach. He could just leave the shirt there, but it’s one that Charlie hemmed to fit him specifically--Deacon’s taller than your average Waster and it's hard to find shirts that fit the length of his back and don’t leave him swimming in fabric--and he’s only got one other like it. 

He hasn’t had anything that fit him so well since his vault suit.

Deacon hums and haws over it for about an hour, before he decides to try and slip in the roof access door of the agency. Since Ellie mentioned it to him, she’s probably got the shirt, and anything else he left, in a pile on her dresser upstairs so that Nick doesn’t end up wearing it. It’s cowardly and utterly childish, but Deacon is currently feeling both in spades, so fuck it. 

Nick gets to keep the Maltese Falcon; he shouldn’t get Deacon’s nice shirt too.

Deacon climbs up the maintenance ladder at the end of Third Street and sits on the stairs of the old trailer that rests on the catwalk above Third--Arturo is thinking about buying the thing to store his high-end weapons in, but right now it's empty--and unlaces his boots. He’s been up here enough times to know where the creaky areas of the roof are, and in the summer, hardly a day goes by where someone isn’t walking along the roofs for maintenance or just for a nice spot to sit and eat lunch, so a set of quiet sock-clad footsteps are likely to unnoticed. 

The metal roofs are pleasantly hot under Deacon’s feet as he slips across to the agency. He gently checks the roof door and finds it unlocked. Just as he thought it would be. Ellie won’t lock it until she returns for the night. He opens it slowly, testing the hinges when he hears Nick’s voice ram its way out the door.

“What do you want me to say, Ellie? He doesn’t want to stay.”

“Well, did you ask him to?”

Nick gives a bitter laugh. “Yeah. He said he’d ‘regret it’.”

“ _Oh, Nick,_ ” Ellie sighs. There’s a moment of silence, then: “He’s probably scared.”

“And I’m not?”

Deacon’s hand hangs on the handle as his brain is telling him that he needs to get the hell out of here. _Like now._ But because of humankind’s inexplicable need to watch a tragedy unfold, Deacon can’t move. 

“I told him about Jenny, and Winter, and The Institute; all of it, and I’ve gotten nothin’ in return. Just a whole bucket of clams. I know nothin’ about him other than he’s from the Capital Wasteland and his dad was a doctor.”

“That’s not true,” Ellie says. “You know he’s well-educated, far above your average waster. He’s funny, charming, and witty. He likes Shakespeare and the Wasteland Survival Guides; has an incredible grasp of technology despite having a clear dislike of the Old-World. He hates heights and bigots. Likes milk in his coffee, and mac and cheese; occasionally uses Mentats. Doesn’t smoke, but likes it when we do. Loyal to his friends and helps without the expectation of something in return. Frankly, he sounds a lot like you.”

Nick makes a noise of disagreement. “I don’t lie.”

“Really? What about the Fredrickson case?”

“That was different and you know it,” Nick growls.

“I know that you need to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Ellie says, voice soft. “Just because he said that he’d regret it doesn’t mean that he will, or that he meant it the way you took it. He’s good at reading people, making them believe what he wants, swaying them to his way of thinking or pushing their buttons; words are his weapon as much as that plasma pistol of his.”

“Yeah, he’s got a way with words, that’s for sure,” Nick says with no little contempt. “And people.” Nick’s voice softens somewhat. “He’s a natural leader. People want to follow him, but he won’t let them. I don’t understand why.”

“You’re a detective, Nick. Figure it out.”

He hears a file drawer slam closed. “I don’t want to ‘figure it out’, Ellie. I want him to tell me why because he trusts me with it. Like I trusted him.”

Deacon has heard enough. He can’t stand here for a moment more and listen to the hurt in Nick’s voice. He creeps into Ellie room and spies his clothing on her dresser. Deacon grabs his small bundle of clothes, foot holding the door open. 

“Maybe it isn’t you that he doesn’t trust,” Ellie says, “Maybe it’s himself.”

Her words echo uncomfortably in his ears all the way back to the Dugout Inn.

\- - - - - 

Deacon’s story is this:

He had a tough time of it last winter trying to find work around the city; to the point where he was almost destitute. Although Diamond City is a great place to scrounge up work during the spring and summer months, he’s not keen to spend another winter barely scraping by. So he’s decided to head up to Bunker Hill and get a job as a caravan guard again. 

He’s friends with another guard who works out of the town, and he knows about a caravan that’s leaving for the Capital Wasteland soon. It’s a long, arduous journey down the I-95 to the ruins of D.C., but the pay will be spectacular. They’ll probably end up wintering in Capital with a return in the spring next year. He doesn’t know what the work situation is like in the Capital, but he’ll have plenty of caps to see him through if he spends wisely and manages to get a few jobs here and there.

Deacon almost wishes he really was going back to the Capital Wasteland. If for no other reason to see Moira and tell her he loves her magazines, but the Brotherhood is all over that place now, and he doubts they would welcome him back into what they consider their ‘turf’ with open arms. ‘Shot on sight’ is probably a better estimation of their welcome. 

Vadim is profoundly sorry to see him go. Yefim too. Though probably more about the loss of a good tenant than anything else. Deacon shouldn’t be so uncharitable to the elder Bobrov brother; having to deal with Vadim’s antics on a daily basis would turn anyone into a scowling straight-man. At least he plays his part well, though; something solid for Vadim’s endless energy and tasteless jokes to bounce off of. 

Deacon only tells Vadim about his plans, knowing that within a day the whole city will know that Rhett is soon to be leaving it. 

When Piper hears, both she and Nat come by to say goodbye. First, Piper gives Deacon a hug, then she gives him a solid punch in the arm. 

“You know what that’s for,” she says scornfully.

“Ow,” Deacon replies petulantly and rubs his arm. It really did hurt. Like, a lot. 

Deacon shakes Nat’s hand (once he has feeling back in his arm) with all the gravitas one might bestow on a visiting queen. He knows that Nat isn’t the touchy-feely type that her sister is. 

“Piper’s right, ya know,” Nat says as they are leaving. Deacon raises a questioning eyebrow. “You really are the dumbest smart person. Like _ever._ ”

Ah, the contempt of a ten-year-old. He remembers it well.

Ellie says goodbye the night before he said he was leaving. He’s actually going to slip out of town once the bar closes around 2 a.m. and as such, he's trying to get some sleep before then. It’ll take him several hours to get to The Switchboard, but he figures he’ll be there by dawn. Thing is, he hasn’t been able to sleep. He keeps torturing himself over whether or not he should say goodbye to Nick in person, or just leave a note along with the lantern he took from his old dead drop location.

There’s knock on his door and after a moment of indecision he calls for the person to come in. He figured it was going to be Vadim--trying to talk him into a couple hours of farewell festivities, and is surprised to see Ellie instead. 

He sits up on his bed, he’s mostly dressed, but she has seen him in worse states of undress.

She looks around his room, sharp eyes taking in all his packed belongings. There isn’t much; he never accumulated many things here. Unlike at Ticon. Then, her gaze settles on him.

“You better be in here coming up with some good to say to Nick and not thinking about slinking out of town without saying goodbye.”

Deacon winces slightly. Razor-sharp Ellie, as always.

“Can’t I be doing both?”

“It better be the former.”

Deacon looks away and Ellie sighs.

“Please go see him. If you leave without saying goodbye…” she trails off, her expression communicating all the things left unsaid. “I’m going to be out with Tom until midnight, in case you decide to see Nick.” Ellie moves to the bedside and places a soft kiss on Deacon’s cheek. “Be careful out there, yeah?”

He squeezes her hand. “Yeah.”

When she’s gone, Deacon lays back down on his bed and thinks about what she said. Then, he thinks about what he overheard yesterday. Finally, he thinks about what he wants. 

_‘Nick’,_ The Lone Wanderer replies calmly and it’s the first thing they’ve agreed on in a long time. They’ll inevitably fight over _why_ Deacon can’t have Nick, but it’s oddly nice to be in agreement again.

Deacon gets out of bed and dresses. If he’s going to say goodbye to Nick, it’s going to be the last thing he does in Diamond City. i.e.) He’s going to leave as soon as he does it because he won’t be able to stand staying in the city, even for a few hours, after he’s done it. 

He gears up: vest, tool belt, plasma pistol, knife, leg guards, and boots. The whole nine-yards. He shoves his newly repaired bomber jacket in his bag (Charlie really out did himself this time), slings it over his back, and tucks his sunglasses in the pocket-watch pocket of the vest. Then, Deacon tosses his room key on the dresser, picks up the lantern, and heads out. 

Yefim is just in front of the entrance to the Dugout Inn’s rooms watching Vadim entertain a whole crowd of bar patrons. He gives Deacon a slight nod when he goes by, but doesn’t say a word. Deacon's grateful and tosses Yefim wink. 

He makes it into the streets without incident. 

As he picks his way across town, Deacon decides that he’s going to miss Diamond City. Not just because of Nick and Ellie or Piper and Charlie, but for the simple sake of the city itself. It’s not a bad place to call home. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but if they can accept a synth as one of their own, he thinks that once McDonough is rightfully booted from office, they really will be the Jewel of the Commonwealth. With all the facets of life that the Wastes has to offer. 

When he arrives at the agency, Deacon lifts his fist to knock but hesitates. The Lone Wanderer tells him to quit being a coward and Deacon raps on the door twice. He counts to five before Nick opens the door space, he reflexively opens it wider when he sees it’s Deacon. Then, he stills, like he just realized what he was doing, and frowns. 

“Got a moment?” Deacon asks. 

Nick’s eyes sweep over him, taking in all his gear and packed belongings. After a moment, he nods. “Yeah, come in.” Nick steps away from the door and sits on the edge of Ellie’s desk; arms crossed.

Deacon slides his backpack off and sets it in the interview chair in front of Ellie’s desk, then he sets the lantern on the desk, next to Nick.

“So…I’m leavin’,” Deacon says after a moment of awkward silence. “Now. Tonight. You probably gathered that, though.”

“Yeah, the bag kinda gave it away.”

“Exactly.” God, why is this so hard? “Uh…this is for you. And Ellie.” Deacon gestures to the lantern.

Nick pointedly looks at the bare bulb that hangs over the entrance door and Deacon starts laughing; the awkward stress of the situation getting to him.

“Not that kind of lantern,” Deacon says after his laughter stops. “Though, if the generator went down, you could use it for that. We actually use these in The Railroad.”

The ridged lines of Nick’s shoulders soften as his curiosity is peaked.

“Not only is it our symbol (it’s on all our brochures and canvas bags), but a lit lantern usually signifies something important is nearby. Or, it can mean that an agent is in trouble, depending on where it’s spotted.”

Nick’s arms uncross as he begins to understand what Deacon is trying to convey.

“I won’t be back in Diamond City for a long time, maybe never, but I want you to know, that if you or Ellie ever need anything--if you are ever in trouble or are hurt or whatever, that if you light this lantern and hang it outside I will hear about it and I will come. No matter what.”

“Kid--”

Deacon hold up a hand. “Please hold your applause. I’m not much for praise.”

Nick smirks. “Liar.”

“Well, okay. Maybe just a little applause.”

Nick gives him a slow golf clap, that is pretty much ineffective due to his one hand lacking synthetic skin, and Deacon bows. 

The tension is still there between them, but it's not quite as oppressive as it was once was. Deacon will take what he can get.

“So, this is it, then.”

Deacon nods. “Yeah. Got called back to HQ a couple days ago. A.S.A.P. the note said, so I really do need to be going. They get _so_ cranky when you take that as a suggestion and not an order.” He grabs his backpack from the chair and slings it over one shoulder.

Nick stands. 

“Take good care of my Falcon, yeah? Polish him. Treat him nice. Whisper sweet nothings to him. Think fondly of me when you look at him: ‘Ah, Deacon, that dashin’ rogue’ or ya know, whatever.”

“More like, ‘That pain-in-the-ass kid who talked too much and was too smart for his own good’.”

Deacon grins and presses a hand to his chest, right over the fabric heart. “Oh, Nick, _stop._ Be still my beating heart.”

Nick’s eyes drop to Deacon’s vest. He’s not sure if Nick can see the heart through his hand, but it probably doesn’t matter. Just knowing that it’s there, that it marks Deacon, is enough. 

He can see the exact moment Nick comes to his decision; it’s written plainly on his expressive face (not surprising really; Nick is a terrible liar) and this time, Deacon thinks: _‘Fuck it.’_ in the face of his panic. Or was that The Lone Wanderer?

Deacon drops his hand.

Nick steps closer; his movement carefully telegraphed as if he’s afraid Deacon will bolt like some startled radstag if he moves too fast. To be honest, he might. The Lone Wanderer is doing all he can to tamp down on Deacon’s mounting panic, but if Nick makes one wrong move, he’ll probably skitter away with a forced laugh and a "Gee, Nick, wasn’t this just swell? I’ll catch you around…oh well, probably never. _Byyye!_ "

Nick’s skeletal hand slides around his waist as the other cups the side of Deacon's jaw. Nick tilts head just enough to the side so that the brim of his hat won’t bonk Deacon in the forehead (for a fleeting second, Deacon thinks that _yeah, so not his first time working around those fancy pre-war hats_ ) and then he’s kissing Deacon.

The static noise in his brain becomes quiet and he barely processes that Nick’s lips are dry, and taste like the bitter tang of nicotine, synthetic skin, and the acerbic bite of radiation dust before he’s hungrily kissing back as a low moan spill across his lips.

Suddenly, Nick is pushing him backwards and Deacon's mouth opens under his, and Nick’s mouth is dry and it’s weird, but _Christ,_ it's been ages since he’s kissed someone and judging by the way that blood is rapidly heading south, Deacon doesn’t care one wit that Nick doesn’t have saliva in his mouth. All he cares about is that Nick _has_ a mouth and is kissing _him_ with it.

Deacon drops his backpack to the floor--the holotapes rattling as they bounce against one another inside the bag--in favour of better using his hands to fist in Nick’s coat and drag him closer. The top of Deacon’s shoulders hit the cinderblock wall in front of Ellie’s desk, his stealthboy scrapping across the stones, and as uncomfortable as it is, Deacon is lost in a haze of all the imaginings that he’s denied himself these last months, in a haze of _want, want, want..._

He _wants_ to pull every stitch of clothing off of Nick and peel back his synthetic skin until he can freely run his hands over every inch of Nick’s intact sensor mesh and watch as he loses control under Deacon’s touch.

He _wants_ Nick to stretch him open one finger at a time until Deacon is a gasping, sobbing mess that is helplessly fucking himself on Nick’s fingers, stroking his own cock, while Nick watches him come undone with those bright, _bright_ eyes.

But most of all, Deacon _wants_ to stay. He wants to stay so badly it feels like it's tearing him in two. He wants adventures and mindless domesticity and a real home again; he doesn’t want to keep wandering, never lost, but never found either. Only…he can’t, can he? He gave that up when he gave up his real name and face when lying became his preferred method of communication, and he can’t keep doing that to Nick. Not after the conversation he overheard.

Deacon pulls back, his head gently falling on the cinderblock wall. “I have to go,” he gasps, wholly out of breath.

The corners of Nick’s mouth pull into a slight frown. “Alright,” he says, voice raspy and low (and fuck it does _things_ to Deacon), but he doesn’t step back from where he has Deacon pinned to the wall.

“Like, tonight. Now.”

Nick’s eyes flick to Deacon’s lips then back and Deacon nearly kisses him again. “You gonna come back?”

“If you need me.” Deacon swallows. “Dire straights, only.”

“No. Not good enough, kid.”

Deacon sighs. “You don’t want me, Nick. You don’t know me-”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“I didn’t do it by mistake.”

Nick makes a noise of frustration, and this close, Deacon feels it more than he hears it. “Why don’t you trust me?”

Deacon doesn’t answer. Any response he gives to that question will only hurt Nick more, and he’s had his fill of that. Instead, he says, “I really have to go. I wasn’t kiddin’ about HQ getting cranky.”

“Fine,” Nick says and steps back. His coat is all rumpled where Deacon had fisted it, but other than that, there’s no evidence of Nick being affected, aside from the despondent look on his face. Well, half of it anyways. Nick’s head is bowed so the brim of his hat hides his eyes.

Deacon’s sure he looks like he just about got fucked, but by the time he gets to the Switchboard, it’ll just look like ‘Windblown Waster’. He bends and picks his backpack up off the floor.

Nick’s eyes track him as he moves to the door, but he doesn’t follow. Deacon pauses, his hand on the door handle.

“Nick, I-” Deacon shakes his head. Uncertain as to what he was going to say. What he _should_ say. 

Nick looks at him with those bright yellow eyes, those eyes with one that is slightly darker than the other and Deacon says the first thing that comes to mind:

“Wish you were mine, Valentine.”

Then, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting for 8 chapters and over 100,000 words to write that last scene. It was one of the first I thought of when I first starting writing this story. It wasn’t supposed to be that angsty, but they had to be like that. D: In the words of Professor Farsworth: _‘Oh, I made myself sad.’_
> 
> At the bus stop, Deacon and Nick quote the beginning of what is probably one of the most famous Shakespeare soliloquies. Here's the first few lines: _All the world's a stage, / and all the men and women merely players: / they have their exits and their entrances; / And one man in his time plays many parts_ \- and it's from _All's Well that End's Well (2.7.139)_
> 
> According to the Fallout Wiki, The Lone Wanderer was born July 13, 2258. Making Deacon 26 in 2284, and 29 in 2287.
> 
> Clams = 0. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
> 
> Fun fact: the title of this chapter is from the Bob Dylan song: _'This Dream of You'_ which was almost the title of this whole story. Also, I already have a Far Harbour sequel planned and I am so excited about it. It’s gonna be epic and dark. I spent the whole time playing that DLC going: ‘Nick and Deacon have to do this together!’


	9. The Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lord, what fools these mortals be!_
> 
> _-A Midsummer Night's Dream (3.2.115)_

It’s the early morning hours when Deacon arrives at the Switchboard -or should he say the old Slocum's Joe donut shop.

He specifically goes in the front entrance, after watching the area for about an hour to make sure there wasn’t any other activity around the place. Deacon shuffles down the basement stairs; feet heavy from walking with all his crap strapped to his back, heart heavy from saying goodbye to Nick, and head pounding angrily at him for not sleeping before proceeding to walk for several hours north across the Commonwealth.

Of course, that could just be The Lone Wanderer silently raging in his brain -kinda hard to tell at this point. What he really needs is some painkillers and possibly a drink. Also, some real sleep. God, he’s tired. 

He pulls back the bookcase that hides the entrance elevator and pushes the intercom button. There's a moment of dead air, then:

“Code.”

Deacon sighs and rests his forehead on the cool metal of the elevator doors. This is new.

“’Fraid I don’t know it, pal. I could tell you our current sign/countersign or even the last two we used, but not a code.”

“Then, I can’t let you in. Orders.”

A flash of anger surges through Deacon; no one thought to mention this in his last communique? He closes his eyes and breathes through it, raging at this woman isn’t going to get him what he wants. 

“What’s your name?” he asks.

There’s a moment of silence. “Uh...Beatrice Bell.”

“Hi, Beatrice. I’m Deacon. I’ve been in Diamond City for the last year working undercover and unfortunately, no one seems to have thought to keep me abreast of all the changes that have happened since I’ve been gone.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounds so run down. “Sly Nicolas and Desdemona are expecting me.”

“Deacon? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

His mouth curves in a sad smile. “All bad, I’m sure.”

She laughs. “What?! Are you fucking, kidding? You killed a Goddamn Courser! We _all_ read that report. You are the baddest heavy we got. I’m sending the elevator up; I wanna shake your hand.”

Deacon looks up at the floor dial and sees it tick steadily up. “Thanks.”

When the elevator arrives a few moments later, Deacon climbs on and punches the button for the lower floor. He’s dead on his feet. He needs to sleep; he’ll even forgo painkillers for a bed.

Beatrice Bell is waiting for him when the elevator rolls to a stop. She has a large smile for him that crinkles her face in a lovely way. Her hair is a shade darker than his and greying slightly at the temples; she looks to be about Dez’s age. And she’s new; well, to him. 

Her grip is firm as she shakes his hand and Deacon likes her. He doesn’t even know her, but he likes her. Redheads have got to stick together.

“Damn,” she says as she lets his hand go. “Look at you, as tall as a friggin’ synth. No wonder you took that sonuvabitch out. Wait, are you a synth too?”

Deacon winks. “Maybe.”

Beatrice gives him a careful once over. Then, she shakes her head. “Naw. Don’t believe it. If you were, Glory woulda taken all the credit.”

“She isn’t here, though, right? She’s at Kilo. So…”

For a moment it looks like she’s rethinking her initial assessment, then: “Screw it. It doesn’t even matter, I’m impressed either way.”

“You should be,” Deacon says with a smirk. “That thing was really hard to kill. Plus, I didn’t do it alone.”

“Oh, I know. You and the famous Nicky Valentine. _Shit._ That, right there, is a duo worthy of a comic book. I used to live in Diamond City (before it all went to hell with that asshole McDonough) and he’s good people.”

Deacon’s smile gets a little hard around the edges; like he needs the reminder right now that he was an utter monster to one of the best people he’s ever known. “No doubt about that. So, they still got beds around here for transient agents?” He really can’t keep up with this right now, and as nice and Beatrice is, he needs to recoup.

“Sure. Over in the generator room.”

“Nice to see not everything has changed. Well, I bid you goodnight, Bell. And if you see Dez or Sly Nick, tell ‘em to leave me to sleep, yeah? It’s been a helluva day.”

“No problem. See ya later. Oh, and Deacon? The current door code is: Christmas.”

“Thanks,” Deacon says and leaves Beatrice Bell at the elevator with a lazy salute. 

He used to have a bed in the heavy’s quarters here on the second level of The Switchboard, but it has been a year and unlike Ticonderoga, he doubts they have saved him a space in there. It’s okay, though, the fusion generators are a quiet enough and the low vibrations they send through the concrete is soothing. It’s sort of like being the vault again, you know, if in the vault he had to sleep on a moth-bitten mattress on the ground. Not that he's complaining; not one bit, no sir. 

There’s a couple agents already in the generator room, but there's a free bed in the corner and Deacon sends a prayer of thanks into the ether. He quickly strips out of his gear, dumping it in a heap beside the mattress and collapses into bed. The fusion generators put off a fair amount of heat and Deacon doesn’t even bother with the blanket before he is blissfully sawing logs. 

It isn’t the general noise of the Switchboard agents that wakes Deacon (he’s used to the ambient noise of the Dugout Inn, and this really isn’t that much different save for the faint hum of electronics in the background), but rather, the pounding headache that hasn’t eased since he fell asleep. He rolls over with a groan as all the previous day’s memories wash over him and he wishes, for a flickering moment, to die. Then, he could stop worrying about all the problems of the Commonwealth and those of his own personal making. 

It’s a useless thought (he doesn't really mean it, he knows) and one that The Lone Wanderer scoffs at, so Deacon decides that the next best thing is painkillers, breakfast, some coffee, and a large dose of denial. We’re talking Egyptian river size, here. He’s not even going to think about Nick until _at least_ 2287.

He rolls out of bed, grabs his sunglasses from the pocket of his waistcoat, and shoves them on his face. The bright lights of the Switchboard are not going to help with his headache and frankly, he doesn’t want anyone to see the sorrow that is no doubt permanently etched in his eyes these days. He throws his dress shirt back on over his undershirt, forgoes buttoning it, and pulls his boots on without lacing him. 

Bare minimum of effort is pretty much going to describe him today.

Deacon heads out into the Switchboard proper. He sees Dez, Sly Nick and a smattering of other agents; some he knows and few he doesn’t. When the doors to the generator room close with a bit of a _bang_ behind him, Deacon garners the attention of the group. He staunchly ignores them as he crosses the room to the kitchen.

“Deacon-”

He cuts off whatever Desdemona was going to say with an outstretched finger. _‘Not now,’_ it says, _‘Not yet.’_

He lifts up the Luxobrew coffee pot and finds it empty. So he goes about brewing himself some coffee. When he’s got it sitting on the hotplate, Deacon scrounges around in the cupboards for some painkillers. There used to be a couple bottles that hung around in the makeshift kitchen for any agent who might have had a rough night, but didn’t actually need to face the biting sarcasm of Doctor Carrington for meds.

After a moment of searching, Deacon finds a bottle and rattles a few into his hand. Then, he grabs a can of purified water, some dried brahmin meat and mutfruit, and sits down to wait for his coffee to finish brewing. 

Just as he hears the hollow hissing noise of the water reservoir in the coffee pot announcing that it’s got nothing left but steam, Deacon also hears a commotion out in the Switchboard. He stands to pull the coffee pot off the hot plate and a moment later, Tinker Tom bursts into the kitchen.

“Dee! Deacon. Dee-man!” Tinker exclaims with all the nervous energy of someone who uses way too many Mentats that have been soaked in Psycho (Tinker’s personal recipe). “Bonnie Bell told me you arrived. She was supposed to tell me last night when you got in, but I _guess_ she thought I was sleeping or somethin'.” He laughs. “I don’t sleep. _Much._ ”

Deacon furrows his brow, taking in Tinker’s appearance. He’s looking especially rough. “Uh, I don’t think that’s her name.” Or is it? Hell, he can’t remember.

“You know me, man-” Tinker taps his forehead. “-my brain's all fucked up; wants what it wants. Thinks what it thinks.” He sits at the table. “So, here’s something crazy: Bee-Bell, Bee-bop-a-lou-bop along bam-boom, told me that you’re a _synth._ ” He stands again, the jiggling motion of his leg forcing him to move again, to pace back and forth. “But that’s just fuckin’ crazy, right? Even if you did kill that Courser. I mean, surely you woulda said something before now. You wouldn’t just drop something like that on ole' Tinker Tom, now would you?”

Deacon stirs some brahmin milk into his coffee and decides that it is way too fucking early (for him anyways, he has no idea what the _actual_ time is) to be dealing with Tinker Tom and his many issues. He likes Tinker, but interacting with the man requires a lot of energy. Something Deacon doesn’t have much to spare of right now.

“Who me? Never! Why I’m shocked you would even suggest that. _Shocked._ ” Deacon sits back down at the table. “Bee-Bell told me that I was as _tall_ as a synth. I think she just inferred the rest.”

There's a moment of relief that flows through the whole of Tinker Tom’s frame, but he straightens after a second, and eyes Deacon critically.

“Well, you are pretty tall. Synth height, definitely. You sure you ain’t a synth? No judgment, man, but we uh, we’re gonna have to make sure you’re on the up and up. Feel me?”

Deacon plasters a grin on his face. “I feel ya, but all it is, is good nutrition. Promise.”

Tinker nods. “Okay, okay. I’ll take you at your word, man.”

“Sweet. Now, maybe you could do something for me?”

“Hey, Dee-man, I’m always happy to help the Railroad’s baddest heavy (don’t tell Glory I said that). Whatcha need?”

“Could you cut back on your Mentat intake? Just by like one or two. You’re givin’ me a buzz just by sittin’ next to ya.”

Tinker stops moving, looking like someone caught him with his hand in the cookie-jar. Or chem-jar, in this case. “I ain’t doin’ more than four a day.”

Deacon raises a skeptical eyebrow. 

“Okay, okay…more like six. But I swear that’s the upper limit.”

Deacon makes a face.

“Ugh, man. Why are you doin’ this to me?! Alright, so I _may_ have bumped it up to like 10..12…would you quit lookin’ at me like that? Fine! _15._ ”

Holy mother of what the flying fuck, and Jesus Christ on top! Why hasn’t someone said something to Tinker? Or to Carrington for that matter? Did they want to loose Tinker Tom to an overdose?

“Seriously, pal? Come on, Tinker, we both know you don’t need _that_ much. Could you cut back to like 12?” Deacon is very careful to keep the surprise and outrage out of his voice. 

Does literally everything fall to shit when he’s not around to watch it? Ticonderoga was fine until he got assigned to the Switchboard, them _bam!_ Coursers left, right, and center. Kilo was chugging along all good until he left there to return to The Switchboard and now it’s a giant, synth-hating mess down there. He’s not here, at The Switchboard, and shit like this is going on. God, what else has been completely fucked since he’s been gone?

“12,” Tinker says it like he’s tasting the number. Or tasting what it’ll be like to cut back to that much. “Yeah… I mean, I _suppose_ I could. Would have to sleep, though.”

“Hey, sleep is great. Aces, even. I love me some sleep. In fact, I walked here in the middle of the night just to _get_ some sleep. That’s how much I love it.”

Tinker laughs; it’s an erratic staccato. “That’s fucked up, man. How do you even get any work done?”

Deacon waves his hand. “Magic.”

Tinker sits back down at the table. “Oooh, I knew it man. I just knew it! You are some kinda special. Tell me all about-”

Desdemona appears at the kitchen doors. “Tom.”

Tinker Tom startles and turns. “Oh, hey, Dez. Just talkin’ with Dee. Totally not bothering him. Uh, right?” He looks back at Deacon. 

“Not in the slightest, pal.”

“See?” Tinker says, tone smug.

Dez frowns. “Out,” she barks. 

“Okay, okay. Jeez la-wheeze, things are gettin’ tense around here.” Tinker stands and scuttles out of the kitchen. 

“Don’t encourage him,” she says once Tinker Tom is gone.

“To what? Use less of his Psycho enhanced Mentats? Did you know he is up to 15 a day?”

Her jaw drops. “What?”

“Hasn’t anyone been talking with him, or looking at him? He’s practically vibrating he so strung out. Christ, he’s as thin as a rail.” Deacon lets some of his outrage leak into his voice.

If they lost Tinker Tom to a drug overdose, The Railroad would be utterly fucked. No one knows how to properly maintain the tech here or P.A.M. -well, aside from him and he is done doing them favours. 

“ _Hell._ I’ll talk to Carrington. We must have just missed it; Tom’s always a little crazy.”

“Mad as a Hatter, more like, but come on Dez, he’s trippin’ harder than a raider who stumbled into a Med-Tec laboratory. He’s _this close_ to ODing on that shit and no one is payin’ attention.”

Desdemona bristles at his tone and Deacon tries to find his calm again. His temper is short today because of his headache and because of Nick. _Don’t think about him,_ he tells himself.

“We are all busy, Deacon. Not all of us languished in Diamond City. Sometimes things slip through the cracks.”

It’s a cheap shot, he knows it, and though he wants to cut her into verbal ribbons for it, Deacon is not going to let The Railroad dictate his emotional state. The Lone Wanderer’s guilt trip is enough to deal with. He lets it slide. 

“Then, learn to delegate, or you’ll lose The Railroad’s best resource.”

“Are you done?”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “My breakfast or lecturing you?”

“Both.”

“Yeah." Deacon stands and gulps the rest of his coffee. "I suppose everyone is just _dying_ to hear all about how I languished in Diamond City. I did nothing; just so you know. It was a totally party, like 24/7. I even managed to get the whole city into the stands for a rousing rendition of ‘The Wave’.”

Desdemona sighs. “Okay, Deacon, you’ve made your point. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that. Especially since I was the one who sent you there.”

He hums in agreement and the two of them head back out into the Switchboard proper. The small group of agents that Deacon saw when he stumbled out of bed this morning, is gone. Only Sly Nick and Dez remain, with Doctor Carrington and Tinker Tom joining them. Oh good, three against one. This is exactly how he wanted to start his day.

Sly Nicolas kicks out a desk chair for Deacon to sit on and he breezes by it. Ignoring it in favour of sitting on the surface of a desk. Carrington snorts in amusement and the already dark look on Sly Nick’s face gets darker. Desdemona sighs; she knows she’s going to have to play mediator for this. Tinker Tom paces back and forth in an attempt to burn off some of his chem-fueled energy. It doesn’t seem like he’s paying attention, but one should never underestimate how much Tinker retains.

Deacon speaks first, he’d rather get this over with quickly and move on to University Point. 

“So here’s how this is going to go: You’re gonna question me about possible Institute agents in Diamond City. I’ll tell you my thoughts. There will be some comments about me not listening to my ban on visiting safehouses. Then, I’ll point out that between me and Nick Valentine we saved three agents from a Courser, so -you’ll pardon my French, but fuck your ban.” 

Deacon bangs his boots on the outside of the desk, making a hollow _thunk_ noise. “And from there I’ll angrily ask about Timms and Randolph house and you’ll make comments about how even after all this time you still can’t rule me out as a suspect for being the mole. I’ll point out that you cleared Timms, even though he should have been more of a suspect than me. And it’ll become a fight from then on.

“So how about we skip all that and just do two things: I’ll tell you about Diamond City, you tell me what you want me to do at Kilo house, and I’ll see if it's something I’m interested in. Okay?”

There is a moment of silence. Sly Nicolas and Desdemona look to one another in surprise and consideration. High Rise must have misled them. Nice. 

It’s actually Tinker Tom that speaks first. “That’s three things, Dee-man.”

Deacon smirks. “Sure is. My mistake.”

Sly Nick leans against a desk and crosses his arms. “Tell us about Diamond City.”

“Good city. Good people for the most part. I’m certain the Institute is watching it, maybe even trying to influence it. After all, it is the Great, Green Jewel; if they could gain a foothold there they would have a much easier time of taking the Commonwealth. If that’s even their goal. We really have no idea what they want.” Deacon shrugs. “My best guess for infiltrators are Mayor McDonough, Malcolm Latimer of Upper-stander fame, and…” Deacon hesitates for a moment, but he has to be honest. If he neglects to mention this, karma dictates it will come back on them. “Nick Valentine.”

There’s an understandable amount of outraged from the assembled agents.

Sly Nick swears at him: “Are you fucking kidding me? You took him to Ticonderoga!”

Desdemona frowns. “Deacon, what were you thinking?”

Carrington rolls his eyes. “Oh, irony of ironies. You breeze over a lecture about us not trusting you and then you give a reason _not_ to trust you.”

Tinker Tom skitters closer. “Dude, he’s a _Gen 2!_ There’s no way to tell how much of a hold the Institute has on him.”

“He’s not a Gen 2, he’s a prototype Gen 3. Look, for what’s worth, I really don’t think he’s the agent. I mean, he hasn’t had contact with the Institute since they booted him -a little under 60-years-ago.”

“That he _knows_ of,” Tinker says.

Deacon sighs. “Which is exactly why I can’t rule him out, even though every fiber of my being says that he isn’t the one.” _Liar,_ The Wanderer whispers. _Not thinking about him,_ Deacon snarls back. “That’s spying for the Institute.” He appends. Dez gives him a weird look, but Sly Nicolas doesn’t hear or doesn’t care.

“This is exactly why we can’t trust you, Deacon,” Sly Nick says, anger clear in his tone. “We are all thankful that you and Valentine saved Ticon’s leader and two agents, and that you scavenged a Courser chip-"

“Oh, Dee-man, that was _so_ awesome! It was a bit tricky to get into and unfortunately I only managed to get a little bit of data off it before I tripped a security measure that wiped the rest, but shit, it’s gonna put us light years ahead-”

“ _But,_ ” Sly Nick interrupts with no little annoyance. “Given the choice between bringing a suspected Institute agent to a safehouse and letting a few agents die, you should have let them die.” Sly Nick sighs. “I know it’s a shitty choice, but we have to put the safety of The Railroad, as a whole, first.”

“Oh, like you did when you put Timms back in charge of Randolph house?”

Sly Nick bristles. “Timms was cleared of suspicion when we found the real culprit: an agent named Vex, who has since vanished.”

Deacon hops off the desk, furious. “So what, you were just going to let me languish in limbo while you set about fixing everything for your pal? No note for Deacon? No, hey, if you need a few caps from your stash at Amari’s so you don’t _starve,_ go right ahead; don’t worry, we won’t kill you.” He pushes into Sly Nick’s space, his height forcing the other man to look up at him. “Let us not forget that you ignored my suggestion for a safer exit tunnel until I took it upon myself to show you how unsecure it was. Amari is doing little in Goodneighbour to hide her connections to us, and that goes double for any of our interactions with the Minutemen.”

Sly Nicolas straightens himself so that he isn’t so towered over. “The Institute is the only one we have to be worried about hiding from. Goodneighbour is now the friendliest town toward us, and the Minutemen have their uses.”

“You have Goodneighbour because of me.” There’s a collective raising of eyebrows. At least he knows Hancock can keep a _Goddamn_ secret. “And the Minutemen are a group that is letting out its last dying gasp. Do you honestly think that there aren’t members there that wouldn’t sell us out for some caps? To have a retirement fund for when things finally peter out for that Old-World group? The same goes for Goodneighbour. Hancock can keep a secret, but how many drifters or drug dealers in that town wouldn’t mind making a few extra caps at the expense of The Railroad?”

Sly Nick backs up, shooting a look at Desdemona. _‘You deal with him,’_ it says.

“You’re right, Deacon,” Dez says. Oh, look. Bad cop, good cop. _Please,_ he can’t be so easily manipulated. “And, thank you for Goodneighbour. You might have to tell us that story.”

“If you’re interested, talk to Hancock,” he says, dismissively as he leans on a desk. “I didn’t come here to bang my own drum, in fact, I almost didn’t come at all. And the only reason I’m still here is because I have things that need my attention in the Commonwealth, but let me be crystal clear: I am not staying for you.” 

“Then, why are you here, Deacon? We don’t need an agent that’s gonna bail at the first sign of trouble.”

He laughs, somewhat bitterly. “If I was that type of person, don’t you think I about have been gone after the _first_ Courser tried to crush my throat? Or after that second one?” Deacon closes his eyes, though the effect is somewhat diminished by his sunglasses. “I could really use a million caps.” He opens them and looks around. “No? Damn. I was hoping that it wasn’t just extremely bad luck, but rather that I had magic. Oh well.”

“Dude! You said you had magic! Aw, man. I was-”

“Tom,” Carrington cuts in. “Later.”

Tinker crosses his arms. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

Desdemona sits on a desk. “Okay, Dee. What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me what you want me to do in University Point so I can leave you to this figment of Old-World glory.”

Dez nods and looks to Sly Nick. He waves his hand. “By all means.”

“We need you to infiltrate The Deathclaws and destabilize them,” Desdemona begins and Deacon’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “Their numbers are growing daily and it’s only a matter of time before they strike University Point and consequently, Kilo. They are too large a group for us to attack directly, however, Glory has been in talks with a recently stationed group of Minutemen. If we can get the Claws fighting against one another, they will be easier to take out.”

Deacon bows his head. They want him to _what?_ Hell…

“You want me to get in with The Deathclaws?” he asks, incredulously. “Pretend to be a bigoted asshole, go through initiation rites, and be totally okay with them killin’ synths?” Deacon shakes his head. “I can’t do that. It’s one thing to pretend to be merc or caravan guard and get with a group of people who are essentially good, but do you have any idea what it would be like to _debase_ myself in that manner?”

“I told you he’d say no,” Carrington says from his perch. “We shouldn’t even be asking.”

“There is no other option. We've already discussed this,” Sly Nick replies.

Deacon frowns. “You haven’t discussed it with me.”

“Dez and Nick here don’t believe that University Point can fortified against The Claws. I disagree,” Carrington says.

Sly Nick leans against a desk. “You know perfectly well that it isn’t that we don’t think it can be done, it’s just that we don’t think it can be done in time.”

“Besides, if we don’t listen to P.A.M.’s advice on the matter, then what’s the point of feeding her information?” Desdemona asks.

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose, sunglasses sliding up for a moment. “This was P.A.M.’s idea?”

“You bet,” Tinker says, all enthusiasm. “Oh, that baby is just churnin’ out statistics and probabilities, and predictin’ the future like ole' Mama Murphey!-” Tinker grew up outside of Quincy (from what he can gather) and was constantly telling tales of the ‘seer’. _Tribals._ “-P.A.M. says that the probability of a Claws strike within the next two months is really high. She could give ya exact numbers if you’re interested.”

“I’m not. I’m really, really, not,” Deacon replies. “So why can’t be we bolster the town’s defences? I mean, two months isn’t a _great_ timeline, but I know lots of caravaners in Bunker Hill who could bring in supplies needed. As long as University Point was wilin’ to cough up some caps to help cover expenses. And if it’s Railroad involvement you’re worried about, I’m sure I could come up with a good story.”

“The problem is, that there are several prominent members of University Point’s council and vendors that don’t want to prevent the Deathclaws from taking the town. They support the gang, discreetly of course, and will fight your plan every step of the way.” Dez sighs. “Look, it’s not pleasant, but we really have gone through every option and infiltrating the Claws is our best bet.”

“Except, you don’t have to do it,” Deacon growls. “You don’t have to lower yourself to an animal to gain the approval of the worst the Wastes have to offer.”

Even at his best, Deacon would have reservations about taking this kind of mission on (and he is so _not_ his best right now) because he has very clear morals and a defined set of right and wrong. The things people like the Deathclaws, or slavers, or raiders, or Gunners, or -insert Wasteland asshole here- do are so utterly abhorrent to him, he’s not sure he could convincingly play the part of a gleeful member. In fact, he might just want to kill everyone in a place like that. Like he did with Paradise Falls. Like he did with the Outcasts. Like he did the after he and Nick found Barbra Long. 

He doesn’t have a good history of putting up with monsters.

Of course, that might be the point. Send Deacon in so he flips his shit and kills everyone. Problem solved. What does it matter if he doesn’t get out alive? Or sane?

“No,” Deacon says. “I don’t think you fully understand what it is that you’re asking, and I know myself well enough to know that I cannot handle an assignment like this right now. If ever. Tell P.A.M. to rerun her probability matrix and find another option.” 

He leaves them then, staring at him in surprise over his outright refusal.

\- - - - -

It’s about a half hours walk to the Drumlin Diner north of the Switchboard. It’s no Dugout Inn, but he’ll be honest, right now he would have zero tolerance for Vadim. Trudy is may be gruff in her offering of a drink, but she has no problem leaving Deacon to mope alone in his booth. 

He has been rethinking The Railroad’s mission to University Point. He still doesn’t want to infiltrate The Deathclaws, he isn’t certain he’ll survive it, but he either does this or he might as well cut ties with them. If they lose Kilo house because of his refusal to do this mission and because they are unable to find a suitable alternative, he can kiss any hope of them trusting him goodbye. And if he can’t regain their trust, what's the point of staying?

That was the whole reason he was going to stick it out with The Railroad -to be in a better position to get them to welcome Nora, but without trust, he might as well just kick it in Ticonderoga while he waits for the Commonwealth’s Vault dweller to make her appearance. Who knows if The Railroad will still be around by then? If they lose Kilo it could very well be the beginning of the end; safehouse after safehouse falling until ultimately they lose The Switchboard.

Maybe he shouldn’t try and stop it. Maybe it’s supposed to happen and by trying to prevent it all he ends up doing is making it happen faster. 

He doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Deacon reaches up to brush his fingers against the fabric heart on his vest. 

He sighs and lays his head in his arms on the booth’s table. He seriously considers wandering off to find some raiders to kill to get his mind off all this shit. Or maybe even disappearing into the vault for next few years. 

He’s not sure how long he sits like that (but it’s long enough that he starts to drowse in the afternoon heat) when someone joins him at the booth. Deacon's hand immediately darts down to his plasma pistol and he has it unholstered and pointed at the other person before his head is even raised off the table. 

Desdemona is holding both her hands above the table. “Don’t shoot, Dee.”

He frowns and holsters his pistol. “Don’t sneak up on people, Dez.”

“I don’t think anyone could sneak up on you. You’d’ve shot me before I had the chance.”

“Yeah, a real Han Solo over here. Whatcha want? P.A.M. done already?”

Desdemona motions for Trudy. “No.” She orders a Nuka-Cola and some crispy squirrel bits. Her cola comes right away, but the bits will take a moment to fry. “I wanted to talk about Diamond City.”

Deacon slouches back in the booth. “Thought we already did that.”

Dez cracks the lid of her cola against the edge of the table, pocketing the bottlecap. “You told us what we needed to hear, what Sly Nick needed to hear, but he didn’t read your reports from Diamond City. I did.” She takes a long swallow of her Nuka Cola. Thirsty work walking here, that’s for sure. “Maybe I should be more specific: tell me about Nick Valentine.”

Deacon’s eyebrows raise. “That’s a broad subject. Just what exactly are you after? Why I don’t think he’s working for the baddies? My thoughts on his prototype nature? Why he’s the only synth in the Commonwealth that the people love? Maybe pre-war Nick Valentine?”

“Let’s start with this.” She points at the fabric heart on his vest.

He wants to touch it, but keeps his hands on the table and grins instead. “What? This? Oh, that’s just Charlie Fallon. He was tryin’ to give me a brand, in the Old-World sense of the word. He didn’t take a hot iron to me or anything.”

“And it’s a heart, because?”

“He went a little literal on the whole ‘Valentine’ thing.”

Trudy arrives back with Desdemona’s squirrel bits and asks if Deacon wants something else. He eyes the Nuka-Cola Quantum on her back shelf. 

“That thing just for show or can I buy it?”

She looks at the Quantum. “Sure, if you want it, but most people don’t wanna pay 40 caps for a drink.”

Deacon laughs. “Hell, I paid _twice_ that for whiskey at The Third Rail. Bring it.”

Dez and Trudy look at him like he’s crazy. Which, granted, he probably is. It was really good whiskey, though (and technically two glasses of it, but whatever).

“Caps up front," Trudy says.

Deacon counts out 40 caps for the Quantum, plus the 10 for his purified water. Trudy brings the Quantum and then leaves them in peace. Deacon cracks it and takes a sip.

“Been ages since I had a Quantum. Used to know a girl that was addicted to the stuff. Legitimately addicted; so I try not to indulge very often. Don’t wanna end up like her.”

Plus, the rads are outrageous. Moira may have twisted his DNA ‘like a kitten with a ball of yarn’, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have immunity to becoming a ghoul. So, best not to take any chances with that. He doesn’t actually notice rads anymore; doesn’t get sick at low levels of radiation, and at higher levels (not that he gets there very often, he’s pretty religious about RadAway) it’s this weird sensation of being slightly in pain and being high at the same time. Not something he particularly cares for. 

Dez raises an eyebrow. “Certainly not. So, how close did you and Valentine get?”

“How close are you and Sly Nicolas? ‘Cause those two questions are about the same level of ‘none of your business’.”

“So don’t tell me because I’m your boss. Tell me because you need someone to talk to about it. You’re not the first person to get a little too close to someone while on assignment.”

“Don’t patronize me, Dez,” Deacon says with an annoyed huff.

“I’m not. You’ve always played the aloof agent. Good at your job and willing to help, but never really invested in the cause.” She leans back and picks at her squirrel bits. “I read all your reports and I’m just as good at reading between the lines as you are, Deacon.” She lowers her voice, so only he can hear. “Hits a little closer to home, doesn’t it? When it's not just ‘a synth’ but ‘the synth’ you’re fighting for.”

Jesus Christ, what is he? Transparent? Does everyone know he’s got it bad for Diamond City’s synthetic detective? It suddenly feels like the vault all over again and Butch is leering at him because he caught Deacon and Amata macking in boy’s bathroom. He’s 26 for hellssake, isn’t about time to leave the teenage bullshit behind?

Deacon looks down at his Quantum and picks at the label. He’s not going to think about it, remember? 2287. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Then, listen: I know this mission scares you. It should. If you weren’t scared I would question your sanity. I also know, that despite the cheerful spin you put on finding Barbra Long and subsequently killing those Deathclaws, you were genuinely horrified and sickened to find her like that and took your fury out on them. Rightly so; they deserved your fury.” 

She reaches across the table and puts a hand on his arm. “This isn’t a mission to be taken lightly, and we can’t force you to do it. Nor would we want to. I know Sly Nick is coming off as an asshole-” Deacon snorts; that’s putting mildly. “-but, despite finding evidence that Vex was the mole, P.A.M. is still spouting numbers that are putting both you and Timms in the red. Timms more so than you. Nick is pissed off and genuinely afraid he’s fucked this up, and he’s taking that out on you. Not his finest hour.” 

Dez sighs. “Look, Deacon, if you don’t do this, we will lose Kilo, simple as that. And if you choose not to do this, let me know, so we can evacuate the safehouse and keep casualties at a minimum. This is not a guilt trip; I just want to be honest about the outcomes of this choice.”

Desdemona finishes her squirrel bits and Nuka Cola. Then, she stands and throws some caps on the table. This is her usual meal and she’s got the price memorized. Probably only brought enough caps to cover it. 

“For what it’s worth, Dee, if I thought there was another option, I wouldn’t ask this of you.”

She leaves him to the rest of his Quantum and his thoughts.

Deacon rests his head back on his arms and groans. He sits up again, after a moment. Raiders. Yep, definitely time to kill some raiders. Deacon takes his Quantum to go.

\- - - - -

By the time he returns to the Switchboard, it’s late. How late is something he can’t really tell without a Pip-Boy, but the sun has long set; he knows that much. Deacon is tired, achy, covered in an unspeakable mess, and still has a headache. Or maybe it’s a new one, because he did get bashed over the head pretty hard by one raider wielding a torque rod and has a gash above his eye to prove it. 

That’ll be a hell of a scar to add to his collection.

Despite having a couple facial surgeries, most of his facial scars have remained. Pinkerton rambled on about how it was because they weren’t disturbing the skin in a significant way and using fills and implants to reshape his face. Pinkerton wasn’t comfortable scraping away bone and cartilage to change Deacon’s face that first time (a synth was one thing -Pinkerton didn’t really care if Harkness died on his table, but for the famed Lone Wanderer? Can someone say, bad karma?), and the last time he changed his face, Deacon keep it in that vein. One: it was cheaper, and two: well, he just couldn’t let go of the past could he?

He couldn’t take acid to Autumn’s plasma pistol, nor get rid of the modified holotape, or burn his copy of _‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’_ , and Deacon certainly couldn’t, irrecoverably change his face. Even though he had no intentions of going back to being The Lone Wanderer, there was always that ‘What if’ in the back of his brain.

Anyways…raider, torque rod (that had also managed to destroy his sunglasses), and a giant, gushing gash over his eye. He was pretty ticked off about losing his sunglasses -once the raider was dead, of course. He’s not about to mourn the loss of some glass and plastic when he has to worry about his life, but after, oh man, there was almost a funeral. Then, joy of joys! Another pair of sunglasses were found! And they were way more his speed than his patrolmen’s that met a worthy end.

This time, when he hits the intercom for the elevator in the basement of Slocum's Joe, Deacon knows what to say.

“Code.”

“Why Miss Bell,” Deacon says with a grin and leans against the elevator doors. He’ll admit to running on an adrenaline high despite feeling like shit. (Also, he’s pretty sure that’s her assumed last name, even if he can’t remember what her first is) “We have to stop meeting like this. People will surely talk.”

She chuckles. “Really? That doesn’t sound so bad. Mentioned in the same breath as the Courser-killer? Sounds pretty damn good actually.”

“Well, I guess that makes this Christmas, Bell. And four months early, too.”

There’s a peel of laughter. “Get the hell down here, Deacon.”

When he gets to the Switchboard entrance, the huge grin that is waiting for him on Bell's face falls when she catches sight of him. 

“Christ, what happened to you? Are you alright? What the hell were you doing playing games with me when you look like that?!”

He holds up his hands in a placating manner. “Take it easy, I did this to myself. Promise, I’m okay.”

She looks like she wants to mother him, but is hesitant to do so because of their recent acquaintance. “That gash looks nasty. And are you _bleeding?_ ” Suddenly, her hesitation is overcome as she notices the bullet wound on his arm (just a graze, nothing worth wasting a stim on), and the blood covering his clothing. Most of which, he points out, is not his own. 

He’s bruised, but not broken.

“Well, thank Christ for that. You might want to go see Doc Crotchety about that gash, though.”

“He still up? I have no idea what time it is.”

Bell starts steering him down the stairs and toward the hallway. “Probably around 2200, and yeah, he’s still up. I heard him yellin’ at an agent just a few moments ago.”

Deacon grimaces. It’s one thing to go and see Carrington when he’s his regular assholey self, it’s another when he’s been riled up by someone else. “Oh good, he’ll be extra cranky.”

“Yep, now go get patched up.”

Deacon makes a face at Bell as he steps out the door. He wanders down the halls, sedately making his way to Carrington. He could probably handle patching himself up, but his head is killing him, and he should check in with Carrington just in case it’s something more serious than a mild concussion.

The halls are quiet. He can hear the faint hum of the Switchboard’s generators and air recyclers vibrating through the concrete walls; it’s a comfort. It’d be even better if he had the whole place to himself to do with as he pleased (so much great tech down here), but that’s one of the first things you learn when you live in a vault: share and share alike. The Railroad is pretty good at that and it’s one of the reasons he was glad he joined. 

Of course, these days he’s a little less than enthusiastic to be here. Oh well. 

Carrington is seated at his desk, typing on his terminal; shaking his head and muttering to himself. His clinic is in a cramped room near the R&D department and there really isn’t space in the room for anything other than the desk, the gurney, and the couple filing cabinets that hold medical supplies. Might have been a storage room of some sort before the war, or a semi-nice office for an upper-level bureaucrat. 

A lot of agents can’t handle working underground 24/7; not enough light, nor enough breathable space, and end up cycling out to other safehouses for a break. The ones that stay are better at coping (or are like him and used to live underground) with Switchboard' s maze of concrete halls and corners. Deacon's never had trouble navigating the place, he could probably do it in the dark; a holdover from his days of staring at the minute differences in the steel walls of the vault and memorizing how many twists and turns it takes you get somewhere. 

He’s not sure which one Carrington is: cope-er or undergrounder. He doesn’t seem to suffer any ill-effects from being underground. Deacon thinks he must spend time above ground to get his daily allotment of Vitamin D, but the ease in which he lives in The Switchboard makes Deacon wonder if he too didn’t grow up in a vault, or maybe an underground bunker of a different sort somewhere else. 

Deacon gives the door a couple of raps and Carrington turns from his work. When he sees the state Deacon is in, he gives long sigh and gestures to his gurney. Deacon would like to say that he hopped onto the gurney with no trouble, but he buggered his knee when he tripped on one set of stairs at the Corvega Assembly Plant in Lexington while trying to dodge a raider with a sawblade baseball bat. Unfortunately, there are _a lot_ of stairs at that place and he had to limp ungracefully around them all. 

Carrington watches him struggle with a detached eye. “Knee injury, bullet wound on your right arm, a gash above your left eye, anything else I’m missing?” He waves his hand at Deacon’s torso “Out.” 

Deacon starts to unbutton his vest. “Just the general scraps and bruises that come with fighting off a large group of raiders. Also, a really bad headache that’s probably from the mild concussion I'm currently rocking, but I suppose I should mention that I’ve had a headache for about a day and a half now.”

Carrington pauses momentarily from where he is collecting some alcohol and a stimpak. “Did you take any painkillers?”

“Yeah. Grabbed a few from the kitchen this morning. No significant impact.” Deacon sets his vest on the gurney and untucks his dress shirt. 

“Well, let's see how the stimpak affects it, hm?”

Deacon nods and unbuttons the first few buttons on his shirt before shucking it over his head, leaving him in his undershirt. Carrington examines the bullet graze on his arm and shines a small pen light in Deacon’s eyes to make sure his pupils are contracting properly. Then, he prods the area around Deacon’s gash, making him wince in pain as the Doctor checks for any fractured bones. 

“How did you get this?” 

“Torque rod. Missed most of it, though.”

Carrington snorts and readies the stimpak. “You’d be dead if you hadn’t.” He injects the stimpak in the meat of Deacon arm and the lingering pain of the bullet graze and his knee dissipates. The ache in his head lessens too as the skin stitches itself back together, but doesn’t leave completely. “How’s that?”

“Better.”

Carrington narrows his eyes. “Not fixed, though.”

“No.”

“I could give you a dose of Med-X.”

Deacon shakes his. “Please don’t.”

“Alright.” Carrington stares at him thoughtfully. Then, he leans in. “That’s new,” he says, pointing at the thin, white scar just above Deacon’s heart.

Deacon looks down, pulling his undershirt further down to get a better view. “What? Dez didn’t tell you guys I took a knife in the merry month of December?”

“No.” Carrington frowns. “I have wondered just how much intel gets passed around; it seems not as much as I thought.” He dabs a chunk of gauze in the alcohol and takes a few swipes at the dried blood on Deacon’s head. “Still, you survived, so I suppose it’s not that important.”

“Aw, Doc. You’re getting’ all sentimental on me.”

“Hardly.” Carrington moves to the dried blood on his arm. “Now, have you come to a decision?”

“About what? Life? Liberty? Why _do_ brahmins and radstags have two heads?”

Carrington raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “You went out and by the looks of your clothing, slaughtered your way through a raider nest, which, in my experience in dealing with your particular brand of ‘charming asshole’-”

“Aw, you think I’m charming; I’m flattered.”

"'Asshole’ being the key word here; as I was saying: my experience is that you cope with violence. Which most people are quite shocked by when they first meet you; Dez, in particular, was very surprised.”

“And there’s that surgical precision you're so well known for. Both a shrink and a quack, you are impressive, Doc. Tell me, do you wave a rubber chicken over your head too?”

“I’d like to say that I’m that good, but it is simply a process of elimination. You don’t have the rosacea of a heavy drinker, nor slowed reaction time of an alcoholic or chem user. Indeed, you wouldn’t have survived this long without it. No twitch associated with Psycho use; no dilated pupils or chapped lips associated with Jet; no explosive temper or excessive muscle mass associated with Buffout-”

“Don’t tell me I don’t have muscle mass.” Deacon pokes his arms. “I mean, I have some, right? You’re makin’ me all self-conscious, Doc.”

Carrington snorts and moves away. He puts the cork back in his bottle of alcohol. 

“My point is, Deacon,” he says with no little exasperation and Deacon figures his work is done. “That there really isn’t anything else left. You don’t use chems or alcohol, and from what I can tell, you also don't let anyone get close enough to see you naked-” Carrington hold up a finger to prevent Deacon from interrupting, and he laughs at Carrington’s upstaging of him. “-so violence is your only outlet. Therefore, when you slaughtered your way through that group of raiders, it was because you needed to work off your excess anger concerning The Railroad’s treatment of you before you could make a level-headed decision about University Point.”

Deacon gives a slow clap. “Wow, brilliant deduction Inspector Lestrade. I would call you Holmes, but that title is already taken.”

“Not by you, I assume?”

“No.” Deacon grins. “I’m Dr. Watson.”

“Of course. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be too offended that you compared me to the least incompetent Inspector in Scotland Yard. Now, are you done deflecting the original question?”

“If I say ‘no’ will you let me leave?”

Carrington gives him a look. 

“Right. Well, I’ve decided to do it. I know I said no, but…” Deacon shrugs. 

“Well, I can’t say I’m glad.” Carrington frowns. “You shouldn’t let them use you. You are our best agent and one of these days they will push you too far. I don’t want to be the one to scratch your name off the active agent’s list.”

“Hey, you and me both, Doc.”

Carrington waves him away. “Get out of my face, Deacon. And if your headaches do not subside, I will prescribe a dose of Med-X whether you like it or not.”

Deacon hops off the gurney and slings his shirt and vest over his arm. “Then maybe, I won’t tell you.”

“You won’t have to; I’ll be watching.”

Deacon leaves Carrington by giving him a mocking look of _‘Ooo, scary’_ and shaking his hands to add to the effect. Carrington rolls his eyes and goes back to his terminal, looking for all the world like Deacon hadn’t interrupted him with his injuries. 

Deacon heads to the kitchen and scrounges up a few more painkillers before he grabs his bag and heads to the laundry room. Tinker Tom had repaired a washer and dryer that a few agents scrounged up several years ago, and miracles of miracles, The Switchboard still has running water. While he waits for his load to run, Deacon scrubs the blood out of his vest by hand. 

When he thinks it’s as clean as it's going to get, Deacon lets it drip dry and grabs his plasma pistol maintenance kit. By the time his laundry is done drying, he’s finished cleaning both his pistol and knife and is ready for bed. He packs his clean clothing and heads back to the generator room.

In the morning, Deacon talks with Desdemona about taking on The Deathclaws infiltration assignment. He can see she is relieved that he decided to help them, but keeps her brisk, business-like manner while she and Sly Nick discusses the details with him. He’s not sure if that’s for his benefit or Sly Nick’s. When they’ve bored him to tears with all the nitpicky details, Deacon checks in with Tinker Tom. He spends a lot of his time with P.A.M. or rather in her room, with all his odds and ends and his terminal. 

Tinker shows Deacon the information he managed to pull off the Courser chip. Not much really, and still mostly encrypted, but it keeps Tinker busy, and as promised, he’s only using 12 Psychotats a day. Deacon would feel better about Tinker not OD-ing if he was down around 8, but he knows that too large a leap for Tinker to make right now. He has to ween himself down to that. 

The next stop is to talk with Carrington about Tinker Tom. He can’t trust Desdemona to remember to do it, or keep harping on Carrington about it. The doctor is quite ticked off that Deacon would dare dictate to him the care of a fellow agent, but Deacon knows that Carrington's anger isn’t truly aimed at him. For all his bluster, Carrington does care about the agents under his care and is angry at himself for missing Tinker’s worsening addiction. Deacon lets Carrington rage at him, hoping that it will allow him to get over his guilt so he can focus on Tinker Tom.

At least, Carrington forgets to ask about his headache. It’s still present and accounted for, unfortunately. 

Deacon leaves the Switchboard in the afternoon; after getting some metal chest armour from Mr. Mathers and a busted looking lever-action rifle. He heads to Ticonderoga to check in on the group and his project -he’ll head to Goodneighbour next for some more of his caps at Amari’s clinic and then down to Quincy for a face change. 

Everything seems to be running smoothly as far as his project is concerned, but memory and hard drive space are being gobbled up faster than he thought it would be. He knows he doesn’t have time to make a trip up to Vault 111 for more supplies, so he goes through his robot collection, picking out all the bits and pieces that used to form the main operating systems for them and cobbles together a temporary solution until he has time for a more permanent one. 

Not his best work, but it should add a few more months of functionality. Hopefully, by then, he will be done with the Deathclaws and University Point.

The next day he works on the metal chest piece he grabbed from the Switchboard. It’s already pretty beat-up looking, so no need to worry about that. Deacon simply paints a few menacing design on the front of it with some paint Codsworth scrounged up from who knows where. While it dries, he works on the rifle. 

He can’t take his vest or his plasma pistol with him on this mission. The vest for obvious reasons, and his pistol is just too high-tech for the group of assholes he’s about to join. They’d never believe he was a raider with that swinging on his belt; he’d be pegged as a nark from a mile away. So both those items will have to live comfy and cozy in his safe until he has a chance to come back for them. 

That’s where the rifle comes in. 

So, remember when he said he wasn’t much for rifles? He’s not really (he always clicked better with energy weapons, pistols in particular), but he did learn to shoot on that old BB rifle and was immensely fond of Lincoln’s Henry Rifle that he pilfered out of the Museum of History. He worked hard at being a better long range rifleman specifically for _that_ rifle because it deserved someone who could wield it properly. Granted, he was no Annie Oakley, but between that and the laser pistol he had before got his hands on the Colonel’s plasma pistol, he did okay. Better than okay, really.

He gave Lincoln’s repeater to Hannibal Hamlin before he left the Capital; Deacon felt that it had hung out in a museum for far too long, and giving it to Abraham Washington would have been a travesty. 

Deacon loves his plasma pistol to little tiny bits and pieces, but some days, some days he wishes he still had that repeater. And that’s why, even though the Railroad had rifles in much better condition, he picked out the busted lever-action one. They weren’t common in the Commonwealth, so he doesn’t know where this one came from, but he’s going to make it a worthy successor to that Henry Rifle. 

Then, he’s going to figure out how to shoot with a rifle again, because it has been _years._ Too bad MacCready isn’t still around, Deacon could use a few pointers.

It takes him most of the day to get the rifle ready: oiling, cleaning, replacement parts for tiny bits that were so rusted that they no longer worked properly, and sanding the flaking varnish off the wood stock. Codsworth pesters him only once for food and water while he’s in the armoury -the robot knows to stay outside the door; Deacon doesn’t like it when he gets too close.

He has dinner with the few agents in-house right now. That is to say: Uncle and Callie. Everyone else is out on a mission or runnin’ patrol around Ticon. After, he goes to the lower levels of Ticonderoga and does a little target practice to try and get a feel for the rifle. Ticon has a pretty big stash of .44 rounds since everyone scrounges for ammo whenever they are out (and no one at Ticon uses .44 rounds), so he’s not worried about running out of ammunition. Of course, that was before he got started and right now he’s worried he might use it all up. His shot is rusty, to say the least. 

Deacon has to call up all his remembered training with Knight Captain Colvin (he wanted to train with Knight Captain Dusk because she was the better marksmen -er…markswoman of Lyon’s Pride, but she had refused to train him) to get this skill well entrenched again and ready to defend himself once he leaves the safety of Ticonderoga. 

After several hours, his shoulder begins to ache from the force of the rifle’s recoil and his cheek is getting rubbed raw from the motion of the stock against it -he needs to oil the wood. He’s not used to the weight of the rifle so his support arm is weak and starting to shake. At least he’s finally got his flinching under control again and stopped trying to anticipate the exact moment of firing; that’s really improved his accuracy. He probably won’t be showboating with twirl as he chambers another round with the lever for awhile, though. Read: _ever._

He trains until he literally cannot hold the rifle straight anymore and calls it quits. Though it is a gratuitous use of a stimpak, he injects himself anyway to take away the burn and ache before he crashes for the night. He’s leaving Ticon in the morning and he can’t afford to be crampy and sore as he treks to Goodneighbour and then ultimately, Quincy. Right before he goes to bed, he slathers some wood oil on the stock of his rifle -he’ll have to see about buying some more from Daisy. 

Deacon wakes early and packs his things. He shoves his nicest shirts and jeans in one of the boxes under his bed, only taking the ones that are beat up. Then, he rearranges the contents of his safe so he can fit his vest, plasma pistol, and holster in with the other two things. Deacon dresses and gears up, then heads downstairs for some breakfast before he leaves. 

No one else is up, too early for all the night owls in this place, so he tells Codsworth to tell everyone else to wish him luck when they are finally awake enough to do so and heads out. 

Goodneighbour is about an hour and a half walk from Ticonderoga, but Deacon takes his time, getting a feel for long distance shooting again. The pouch on his tool belt that used to hold plasma cells can hold quite a lot of .44 rounds, but reloading is a bit of a trick. One plasma cell holds 12 shots, while the rifle requires he manually load the 15 cartridges. 

He used to be able to chamber 15 rounds on Lincoln’s repeater in under 15 seconds, and though his brain remembers his speed, his muscles have forgotten that memory. His hands are still clumsy and if he tries to go too fast, he drops bullets on the ground. When he gets a moment to himself, he’s going to have to practice loading and unloading rounds until he’s back up to speed. 

When he arrives in Goodneighbour, Deacon heads straight to Amari’s clinic. He doesn’t want to tarry here any longer than he has to. The journey to down to Quincy will take him all the day. He crosses through the courtyard of The Old State House, briefly sparing the balcony a glance before be continues to the alley beside The Memory Den. He winds his way back to Amari’s clinic and goes to open the door. It’s locked. He stares at it in surprise. Amari’s door is never locked. 

He takes a moment to look at the building’s cramped front entrance. The windows are dark and covered in a fine film -something that Amari would never let happen, she’s pretty fastidious about her clinic cleanliness. Deacon steps back. Now that he’s paying attention, the place has the feel of being shut up. Permanently.

Huh. Now, what?

She has to still be in Goodneighbour. High Rise would have said something if she’d moved to a safehouse. 

Deacon heads back to the mouth of the alley and taps his lips. There is a reason he has avoided going into The Memory Den all this time (a very good one), but if he wants to know what happened to Amari, he’s going to have to talk to her friend and confidant. He sighs and heads to the repurposed gentlemen’s club’s entrance.

Inside, it’s exactly as gaudy as he always thought it would be, but considering the level of decay a lot of building in the Commonwealth suffer from, this one is in pretty good shape. Only a minimal amount of peeling wallpaper and squeaky floorboards. As he rounds the corner to the main area, Deacon stutters to a stop. He hopes that it comes off as awe rather than fear because he’d rather not try and explain why he’s afraid of egg-shaped pods. Pretty innocuous to most people, but definitely not to him. 

He knew they were in here, but knowing and seeing are two very different things. Amari had described how she wiped the memories of synths through the use of the pods (he refuses to let his brain even think the words _Tranquility Lounger_ ), and that was the moment he vowed never to step into this place. Well, so much for that. 

He continues walking again, careful to keep exactly in the middle of the aisle created by four pods that lead to a raised platform where a woman is lounging. He’s tense and trying hard to keep his breathing even. The woman is watching him with a small smirk, taking in everything about his appearance and mannerisms. This must be Irma. Deacon’s never seen her before, but Amari did talk about her on occasion. 

He stops just before the platform, gives the woman his best smile, and lets her speak first.

“Hey, there handsome,” she purrs; voice a husky drawl. “Welcome to the Memory Den. Do you have an invitation?”

Ah, just like its pre-war founder, this club requires an invitation. How _exclusive._ He almost rolls his eyes.

Deacon shakes his head. “Afraid not, miss.”

She laughs. “Oh, aren’t you good? Not ma’am, but miss; I am impressed. But, we both know I passed my ‘miss’ years some time ago.”

“Sometime ago? I was willin’ to bet it couldn’t have been more than one or two years.”

“Keep that up, handsome, I might just let you have an invitation. Flattery will get you everywhere, after all.”

“Oh, I hope so.” He rests one boot on the edge of the platform and leans in. “Do you suppose it might get me to Dr. Amari?”

She gives him a long look. “Well, aren’t you subtle as sin. I woulda never guessed had you not said something. Most of the time I can pick you types out lickity-split.”

“Kinda the point, miss.”

“Irma, please.” She waves a lazy hand. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of one another. Perhaps I can even persuade you except an invitation?”

“Nothin’ in my past that I wanna relive, Irma. The present is where it’s at.”

She smiles. “Good lookin’ and smart, you _are_ a wasteland rarity-” Deacon tips his head in thanks. “-Now, as for Amari, you’ll find her downstairs.” Irma turns and points to the back corner. “Just down those stairs, there. And while you’re down there, won’t you remind the good doctor that we have a client in ten minutes?”

“Sure,” Deacon replies as he makes his way to the doorway Irma pointed out. 

If this is where Amari is now hanging her metaphorical hat, he hopes she was thoughtful enough to hold on to his caps. Maybe he should keep them at Ticon from now on, but Goodneighbour is such a convenient halfway point for most of the ‘Wealth. Guess it ultimately depends on whether or not she still has his caps -not that he thinks she stole them or anything, just that they might still be in her old clinic.

He can hear someone moving around in the room that the stairs lead to. As he enters, Deacon holds back a shudder. _More pods._ He feels the headache he had been successfully fighting come back strong. He wonders if it isn’t caused by tense muscles, because right now, he’s about tight as a rusted bolt. 

Amari is kneeling behind one pod, pulling its various electronic guts all over the floor. He knocks on the door; she startles.

“Oh! I didn’t hear you come down.” Amari stands, brushing at her knees. She steps back slightly when she gets a good look at Deacon. “I’m sorry, but this area is off limits to clients. The memory loungers are upstairs.”

“So Irma tells me. She offered me an invitation, but I declined.” Deacon leans against the door. “You haven’t been sightseeing lately, have ya, Doc?”

She relaxes slightly. “I was just out to the Freedom Trail the other day. How might I help you?”

“Well, I used to keep a tool box full of caps at your old place, but to my utmost surprise, I find that you no longer have a clinic down that deep, dark alleyway. Granted, I haven’t been to your shop in a while, and some things seem to have moved on without me.”

“Deacon.” Amari gives him a smile, eye carefully taking in his changed appearance. “I was wondering when you’d be dropping by. I have your caps, all safe and sound. I’ll get them for you.” She walks over to a large metal cabinet and opens a door. From inside she pulls out his battered toolbox and sets it on a nearby table.

“Fantastic,” he says and flips the latch. Inside are several leather pouches filled with exactly 500 caps a piece. 

He started keeping his caps at Amari’s when he joined The Railroad because of the aforementioned halfway point that Goodneighbour represented, but before that he kept this tool box stashed under the floorboards of a rubbled ruin. Deacon doesn't like carrying so many caps on his person, especially without the added protection of a group of caravanners and their guards, so he quickly divested himself of most of them when he arrived in the Commonwealth. 

He tries to keep at least a 2 pouches in the tool box at all times for emergencies, but there is normally anywhere from 4 – 6 pouches in it at any given time. Unless he’s on assignment, all excess earned caps go here. This is basically his ‘get the hell out of Dodge’ fund. 

“I hope you don’t mind, but I borrowed some caps to pay a few drifters to move my equipment from my old clinic to here. All were replaced, of course, but I thought you should know.”

Deacon pockets one pouch and closes the lid. “Why? Worried I had dye traps on them? Laid hairs across the tops? As long as they all get paid back, I don’t mind one bit.”

Amari takes the tool box from him and places it back in the cabinet. Well, guess that answers that question. He’ll just be leaving that here, then. 

“Good. Now, tell me, Deacon, how are you? It’s been a long time since you were here last and I’m glad to see it’s under better circumstances this time.”

“I'm peachy, doc. Just swell. Diamond City isn’t that bad of a place to crash for a year.”

Amari shakes her head and sighs. “I’m sorry you had to go through all... _that_ , but I hope you understand the need for us to protect against The Institute.”

“Oh, I understand. Much better than most agents do, I'm sure.” He leans against the table. “I’m not mad about having to spend a year in quarantine, I’m ticked that I did it alone.”

“Very few were pleased with that decision, you’re not alone in that. Anyway, I understand that your mission was a success, even though we aren't certain if they’re watching Diamond City.”

“They’re watchin’ it, alright. Who their agent is, however, is a matter of some debate.”

Amari tucks her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “Short of slicing into the suspected agent to find synthetic parts, we’ll likely never know. Where to now?”

“Quincy for a face change, so don’t get to attached to this mug, and then on to The U.P. Deathclaws.”

She gasps. “They didn’t! Deacon…”

He waves her off. “I agreed of my own volition, Doc. Probably need a shrink afterward, but hell, always kinda needed one of those. So, nothin’ new there.”

Amari places a hand on his arm. “If you need it, we can work through it with the memory loungers.”

He almost recoils at the suggestion. “What? And spend a few hours trapped in my worst memories? Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to politely decline. I’m afraid all your talk about synth memory reassignment has really put me off spending time in one of those things.”

“We monitor everyone during every stage of a memory, keeping in constant communication. I assure you, they are perfectly safe and often beneficial. And no memory reassignment, I promise. It’s not even really possible with a human brain.”

“Ah, yes, best showcased by the infamous robobrain. 100% more murdery than your average psychopath!”

Amari frowns slightly. “You jest, but it’s true. We aren’t built for that.”

But a synth is, right? Therefore, it’s totally okay to wipe their very existence from their mind. Ugh, he needs to go before he gets into an ethical fight with Amari. 

“Which is exactly why I won’t be caught dead in one of those things. Anyways, Doc, I gotta get goin’. I wanna get to Quincy before midnight.”

“Of course. Be safe, Deacon.”

“Yeah, you too.” He turns to go, then swivels back. “Oh, I almost forgot, but Irma says you got a client comin’ in soon.”

“Yes, Mr. Connolly. Thank you for the reminder.”

Deacon heads back upstairs, tosses a cheery salute to Irma as he breezes by her -she gives him a smirk and returns it, and heads out the door. When he’s in the street, Deacon feels like he can breathe properly again and his shoulders loosen. Doesn’t help his headache, but he’s got 12 plus hours until he gets to Quincy to fight it back into reasonable levels. 

\- - - - - 

Somewhere around the halfway mark down the old highway to Quincy, Deacon falls in with a caravan. The guards eye him distrustfully, but Deacon is easygoing and charming enough to get their hands to lower from their weapons. The caravaner is happy to have another gun on the road since this area is getting pretty choked with Gunners, and even better, he doesn’t have to pay Deacon since they’re all headed for the same destination.

Gunners aren’t raiders and don’t usually ransack caravans for their goods, but one can never be sure if someone else hasn't taken a hit out on a fellow caravaner or merchant.

The road down to Quincy used to be one of the safest in the Commonwealth back when the Minutemen were a strong, unified group. But, these days, the Minutemen have reduced patrols and are out numbered and out gunned by the Gunners. The only truly safe place this far south is the town of Quincy itself, where the Minutemen have a garrison. 

They have a few others spread around the southern half of the Commonwealth, but the one in Quincy is probably their strongest, if not the largest. Deacon doubts if there are Minutemen in any kind of numbers anymore.

Night starts to fall as they get close to Neponset Park and the caravan pulls into the park for a place to camp. Deacon could keep pushing on -Quincy isn’t much more than a couple of hours from here, but the caravaner (Rob? Roy? Ray? God, why is he so bad with names? He’s just going to call the guy ‘Blue Hat’ from now on) has an extra bedroll and doesn’t have a problem with lending it to Deacon for a night, so he figures he’ll stay. He’s pretty tired from his journey, and a campfire sounds aces right about now.

The Minutemen are pretty good about keeping the park clear of mirelurks, as this is a popular camping spot on the way to Quincy, but they agree on a guard rotation anyways. If nothing else, someone needs to keep an eye on the brahmin and the merchandise. Deacon ends up with the middle shift, since the caravan guard don’t exactly trust him, and he doubts either of them will be getting a good night’s rest. 

Deacon plays a few games of _Caravan_ with Blue Hat as he munches on his dinner, much to the caravaner’s delight. Apparently, his guards think the game is an annoying waste of time. Deacon silently agrees, but the better liked he is by the group, the less likely he’ll end up having to defend himself against a midnight murder spree. 

A few hours later, Deacon is shaken awake by the caravan guard coming off shift. He jolts and his hand goes for his knife before he realizes where he is. Guard is startled by his reaction and keeps his distance as he explains that it’s Deacon’s watch. He apologizes; the guard tells him not to worry.

“We’re all a little jumpy in the Wastes, buddy, but nothin’ to report, all quiet out there.”

Deacon nods and gathers his sleeping bag around his shoulders. He shuffles outside the cabin they’ve made their beds in, rifle in hand. It’s not the Wastes that have him jumpy, but the half-remembered dream that was sliding into greyscale and a cheerful tune being whistled by someone he couldn’t see. He should have guessed; lingering headaches are always a precursor to those dreams. 

Deacon amuses himself by playing solitaire and thinks about Nick. He told himself he wasn’t going to until 2287, until he could think back and not feel the weight of a heartache. Though, he can pretend nothing is wrong during the day -whistle _‘The Washington Post’_ and firmly deny any sort of attachment to Diamond City, the night is quiet and made for mournful introspection.

He shouldn’t have let Nick kiss him. He should have scuttled away after he left explained why he was leaving the lantern. He feels like he might have promised something with that kiss that he can’t deliver on. Maybe it would have been better to leave without saying goodbye to Nick and just leaving a note with the lantern.

Okay, so no, it wouldn’t have been, because that would have been shitty of him. Ellie was right about that, but he still wants to go back and do it over without the kiss. It would be easier for the both of them move on if he hadn’t let Nick see how much Deacon wanted him. And God did he ever want Nick. Just thinking about him made Deacon ache for the agency and everything held within. 

_Stop,_ he tells himself, _just stop. There's a reason you weren’t going to think about Nick, and this right here is that reason. You can’t change the past, so just forget about it._

Deacon pulls the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. Easier said than done, but he’s going to do his best. If for no other reason than he can’t spend energy on Nick when he’s got to save it for dealing with The Deathclaws.

When he wakes the other guard for the last shift, Deacon does so with one hand on his knife. Just in case he decides to be jumpy like Deacon was, but the guard is simply annoyed to be awoken and shuffles outside with a few grumbled complaints. Deacon can’t really blame him, he’s never cared for watch duty either, but if it’s either that or getting mauled by any number Wasteland baddies, he’ll take watch.

Deacon flops down on the piece of rug he claimed as his own and curls up with the sleeping bag tucked around him in a haphazard way. No point in fixing it up right when he’ll just be up in a few hours anyways. His chest armour is digging into his side somewhat, but he’s really too tired to care. 

The next day, they pull up camp pretty fast and are on their way in under an hour. They reach Quincy mid-morning and part ways at the gate. 

He decides that the best thing to do is head down to the town’s inn and talk with the facial surgeon that makes her home there. It’ll be better for his new identity that he enters the town as a nameless drifter and leaves it as someone else. He won’t bother with checking in with the safehouse in the town either, even though it was them that mentioned sightings of Claws in the area trying to recruit. 

Once he’s got a new face, Deacon will hit up the bar and the maybe the diner for further information on the Claws. If they are recruiting, he might get in with them here in Quincy, otherwise, he’ll just head back up to University Point and go from there.

Quincy’s inn/motel/long term apartment complex is on the far side of town. Kitty corner to the church and right across from the town’s diner. It’s pretty hard to miss with its giant red and white elevator shaft that is attached to the outside of the building. 

He pushes his way in the door and is greeted by the ghoul proprietor of the place. The doctor and this gentleman are probably the only two ghouls Quincy sports, but they seem to be relatively well accepted by the populace. 

“Mornin’,” the ghoul rumbles from behind the counter. “Room? Or the doc?”

“Doc. Too early for some surgery?”

The ghoul shakes his head. “Vera’s already dealt with a few tats this mornin', you’ll be a welcome relief. She hates doin’ that shit.”

“Yeah, that does sound like an atrocious waste of her talents."

The ghoul hums in agreement. “Know the room?”

“Yep, 101.” 

Ah, the irony of having to go to a room with that number to continually escape from his past. 

Room 101 is actually two first floor rooms that have been made into one. The entrance is half of the original room with a small waiting area and from there you pass into the other half of the room where Vera does tattooing work to supplement her income. Not many people are in a huge rush for facial surgeries. Beyond that is her operating room where she performs her surgery. Caps up front to see that place.

When he enters, there are two mean looking Gunners lounging in a couple of chairs. They give Deacon an uninterested look before they go back to their conversation. He sits on the other side of the room and flips through an ancient _‘Massachusetts Surgical Journal’._

After about ten minutes of silence, that is occasionally punctuated with grunts from the other side of the wall, the door to the tattoo parlor opens and another Gunner stumbles out to join the other two. A garish red welt on his upper neck that, under closer inspection, has a B+ tattooed in black ink. The Gunner forks over 50 caps and the three of them leave. 

“Well, hello again, hon,” Vera says as she stashes her caps in the clinic’s safe. “Hope you’re not dissatisfied with my work.”

Deacon stands and tosses the journal back on the table. “Absolutely not. You are the best facial surgeon in the 'Wealth; no doubt about it.”

She gives a wet chuckle. “I know, but you're back and you’ve got me wonderin’ why, ‘cause I’m torn between wanting to do something other than tattoos and not wanting to destroy such magnificent work.”

“Well, Doc, I’ve gotten into a bit of trouble with the law, so I’m in need of a new face.”

Vera waves him over. “What? You couldn’t talk your way out of it what that handsome face?”

Deacon shrugs. “Guess I’m not as charmin’ as I thought I was. You know those Minutemen, can’t take a joke.”

“That they can’t. Well, show me your caps, then we’ll talk business. You want the same as last time?”

“Yep.” 

Deacon counts out 350 caps. Vera counts them again to be sure it’s the right amount, then leads him back. 

“What was that mark the Gunner got on his neck?” he asks.

“Hmm? Oh, they get their blood type tattooed on as a sign they’ve passed their initiation. Not a bad idea, really. Probably the only good one those dickheads have.”

“Huh. I actually coulda used something like that last year.” Deacon pauses, a backstory forming in his brain. “Would you be so kind as to give me a similar one?”

Vera shrugs. “I suppose.” She gestures to the tattoo chair. “Sit. I’ll do it first. Know your blood type, hon?”

Deacon hums; his dad made sure of it. “O negative. Where do Gunners usually get it tattooed?”

She narrows her eyes at him; they’re black and infinite. “Why? You aren’t a Gunner.”

“Indulge me.”

“Alright, since you are givin’ me some much-needed entertainment. The more brazen ones get it right on their foreheads. Others, like the last one, on their necks. Chest and inner wrist are also approved locations.”

Deacon thinks it over for a moment. “I'll go with chest.” That seems like the best location should he ever end up in a situation like he was in last year: unconscious and bleeding out. A doctor is likely to see it there. Plus, it won’t advertise he is/was with the Gunners, making it something he can just use with The Deathclaws. “And make it look like a Gunner tat, yeah?”

She raises a tattered section of brow. “Don’t know why you want to look like those assholes, hon, but it’s your skin.”

Vera does a simple pen sketch (next to the knife scar as per his request) after she’s swabbed some alcohol on the area to disinfect it. Then, she pulls out an ancient tattoo machine and he wonders where she scavenged that -tattoos don’t strike him a popular pre-war decoration. It doesn’t take her long, though the process pinches more than he thought it would. After, she tapes a piece of gauze down over the tattoo.

“The Gunner’s think it’s a sign of strength or manliness or whatever to go without having a tattoo bandaged while it heals. But I’m guessing you’re above that level of stupidity and would rather not risk an infection.”

“You guessed right.”

She leads him to her operation room. “Good. Keep it clean with some high-proof alcohol and purified water and it’ll heal up nice within a week.” 

Deacon starts taking off his gear and stowing it in a trunk on the far side of the room.

“So, what were you thinking, hon?”

“Well, I got to go do this…favour. For a friend. And it would be really beneficial if I could look like an asshole while I did it.”

Vera laughs. “That’s a state of mind more than anything.”

Deacon tosses his metal chest piece in and starts on his tool belt. “Unfortunately, I’m not that good at being an asshole, so I need a bit of facial encouragement. I was thinking a heavier brow and jaw line. Maybe even break my nose and set it weird?”

“And ruin all my hard work to make you look like a cross between Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart? Hon, I’m startin' to regret takin' your caps.”

“Hey, it’s only temporary. Once I’m done I’ll be back. We can work on something new, then. Maybe something between Carry Grant and…Jack Lemon?”

Vera sighs. “Very well. Though, Rock Hudson might work better in place of Carry Grant. Or even Keith McKinney.”

“I’ll defer to your wisdom, Doc,” he says and hops on the gurney.

She has him count backward from 10 as she administers the anesthetic and Deacon doesn’t get much further than 8 before it’s lights out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is our transition chapter. I hope it wasn't too dull. I tried to make it move at a decent clip. Next chapter will be more exciting. 
> 
> Lincoln’s Repeater – a.k.a., my most beloved gun in the whole FO3 game- is the Henry Rifle of 1860 that was given to President Lincoln by New Haven Arms Company. The Winchester rifle was the successor to the Henry, after Oliver Winchester bought New Haven Arms. 
> 
> In FO3 Lincoln’s Repeater holds 15 rounds, while the FO4 Far Harbour lever-action rifles only hold 5 rounds, even though Winchester rifles also hold 15 .44 rounds and were very popular rifles, so they would likely be the ones you find post-war. Unless we’re talking about a Marlin Model 1894, which holds 6, 9, or 10 rounds depending on the tubular magazine. Even so, that is still more than 5 rounds, so I don’t understand why Bethesda gave us rifles with such low mags. Hence the level-action rifle Deacon repairs is also a 15 shot .44 cal. rifle. (I realize you guys probably don’t care, but I do research this sh*t.) :D


	10. The trick to this is: DON'T DIE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Let me have men about me that are fat;_   
>  _sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights;_   
>  _yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;_   
>  _he thinks too much: such men are dangerous._
> 
> _-Julius Caesar (1.2.192)_

Well, he said he wanted to look like an asshole, and Vera pulled it off. He’s a grade-A douche. No doubt about it. 

Deacon grins at himself in the mirror, a patented Deacon-type grin, and it looks a little weird on this face. A little too jovial for his new, heavier features. He tones it down to a smirk. Ah, much better, now he’s definitely rocking that ‘condescending prick’ attitude. He’s known enough of them to know exactly what that looks like. 

“All you hoped for, hon?” Vera asks from where she is putting away her equipment.

“Everythin’ and more.” Now all he needs is an updated haircut. “There a barber in town?”

She hums. “At The Pharmacy. Ask for Stevie.”

Deacon re-gears and slings his rifle over one shoulder by its leather strap. “See ya around, doll face,” he says with a grin.

Her low laughter follows him out the door.

Deacon books a room for a night at the motel (he’s not sure he’ll find the Deathclaws here in town, but he’s not going north until tomorrow, either way) and he stashes his backpack and jacket in it. 

It’s sometime after lunch when he exits into Quincy’s streets again, the afternoon heat pleasant a weight around him. 

Quincy is not a bad town. More inclusive than Diamond City, and not as full of chems as Goodneighbour, but there are too many swampy bogs around the town for Deacon’s comfort. Or sense of smell. 

He knows there's been talk of trying to re-establish the town’s granite quarry (Quincy used to be famous for its stone all over America), but the Gunners have been pressing on the borders of the town for several years now and he can't imagine that any sane laborer would want to risk stepping on what the Gunners may consider ‘their’ territory. Too bad really, Bunker Hill could use some more of Quincy's famous stone to repair its town center. 

Quincy is brightly lit at night, has lots of shops boasting goods of every sort, a decent bar, good diner, rentable rooms; really, everything that a town needs to become well-established. They also have a Minutemen garrison; which Deacon is sure the town wears as proudly as its 'The City of Presidents' moniker. 

The streets are bustling with afternoon traffic; people going to and fro in their daily lives, kids scampering in between people, shouting and calling after one another (while tossing obligatory ‘Sorry!' behind their shoulders as they inevitably bump into people as they careen by), and a couple brahmins are plodding dolefully behind their caravaner masters. If he were his regular self, Deacon might give these people a cheery grin as he walked by, but he has to be in 'asshole' mode right now, and so he sets his face in a firm scowl. The kind that gets people wondering ‘who shit in his Sugar Bombs?'.

The Pharmacy that Vera mentioned is on the other side of town, down the street from the bar, and Deacon heads there at a sedate pace. He passes a Minutemen patrol on his way. A man and a woman, both young looking and both without bars on their blue armbands. Recruits, Deacon guesses. They eye him as they go by and Deacon is confident that his get-up, new face, and scowl look are currently working to make him the asshole he needs to be. Awesome.

For his part, Deacon is kind of sad to see that the Minutemen have become little more than glorified town guards. He's never seen them at their full-strength, but people often talk about: ‘well, that wouldn't have happened if the Minutemen were still around' or 'my granddad used to tell tales of the time the Minutemen saved him from a raider nest'. It's clear, that the Minutemen used to be a large, well-funded organization, with outposts all over the Commonwealth, so they could really live up to that 'help within a minute’s notice' moto. 

The key phrase here is _'used to be.'_

Perhaps, ten years from now, all that will be left of the Minutemen are tales, some laser muskets, and these town guards who walk around with the hats and blue armbands but have no idea what it really means to wear them. Such is life, he supposes. Things rise, reach their zenith and subsequently fall, only to begin the cycle over again. 

Deacon strolls in through the open door of The Pharmacy. There's a kid at the counter, probably around 13 or so, trying to convince the proprietor to sell him a hit of Jet. Deacon wanders around the shelves, listening to the conversation for its entertainment value and not really looking at the products that are scattered about. 

“Come on Mr. Pulowski,” the kid whines. “I was in here last month buyin' a half-dose of psycho for Mama Murphey. I ain't doing it myself; my mom would _kill_ me if she thought I was even thinkin' about doing chems.”

Pulowski snorts. “That stoned, old bird would say anything to get another hit. Don't know why you people put so much stock in her so-called 'Sight'. Besides, you were just there, why do you need to talk with her again? Huh? What kinda huge future does a scrawny kid like you got ahead of him, anyways?

“I don't know. That’s the point. Last time, she saw something about one of the Minutemen who used to be stationed here, but he left for University Point, I think. She said it was his duty to watch out for a priest or something. I don't know, all I know is she made me run half-way across town just so she could talk with him before he left.” The kid stretches his arms across the counter and a bunch of caps fall out of his hands. “I want my fortune this time. Please, Mr. Pulowski?”

The man stares at the kid for a long time. Then, he fishes a key from around his neck and stoops to open a safe under the counter. He comes back with a Jet inhaler. Pulowski holds it up to show the kid, but up and out of his reach.

“Listen carefully Lee, if I so much as hear you've had this anywhere near your mouth, I will make sure your mother brings the full force of her temper down on you. Do you understand?”

The kid holds up two fingers. “Scouts honor, Mr. Pulowski. I'm taking it straight to Mama Murphey.”

“That'll be 45 caps.”

The kid shoves the caps forward along the counter and Pulowski hands over the Jet. Then, he scampers out and Deacon bellies up to the counter. 

“What can I do for you?” Pulowski asks, eyeing Deacon with some distrust. He hopes it because of his new face and not because he's a stranger. 

“Heard about a barber round here. Stevie?” Deacon says, lowering his voice to really accent the scratchiness it's taken on since he had the cartilage crushed in his throat. _Not bad,_ he thinks. If he keeps his tone more monotone and level and cuts back on a number of rhetorical questions he poses, he might make himself an asshole yet. 

Hell, Carrington already thinks he is one.

(Of course, Carrington also thinks he uses violence to cope and let’s be honest here, Deacon uses avoidance and running way to the safety of a vault to cope. Killing raiders was a just an outlet for his anger, he wasn’t really coping, more like making sure he could keep his easy, care-free attitude. That’s not really coping. Right? God, don’t let violence be his coping mechanism.)

Pulowski jabs a thumb behind him. “Upstairs; top floor.”

Deacon nods and moves past to where Pulowski pointed.

He hears the man follow him and as Deacon starts up the staircase, he can feel Pulowski's eyes watching him. The second level is curtained off, probably personal quarters, and Deacon climbs on without missing a beat. The top floor is a crumbling mess, but the slanted areas of the roof that are destroyed have been replaced with new metal and wood. There’s a door on the far side of the room that may lead to a path to another building (he's seen a few catwalks above town) or perhaps another personal room. 

The space is just above being pleasantly warm, but not quite cloying. He thinks it must be really bad up here in the middle of summer and doesn't even want to contemplate how bad it must have been in August. In the center of the room, is single swivel chair, an old, free-standing mirror, and the most grizzled looking barber Deacon has ever laid eyes on. This guy is putting Snowflake to shame, and that's really saying something since he's a ghoul.

The barber gestures Deacon over, somewhat impatiently. “Come on, son. Don't got all day to wait; might die at any moment.”

Deacon wants to laugh, would have if he was playing Deacon and not...hmm. What's he going to call himself?

He takes a seat in the chair and Stevie pins an old sheet around his neck. He peers closely at the line of Deacon's hair cut. 

“Don't look like you need a haircut, son. Mighty fine work this. I'd say, my boy, John, up in Diamond City, by the looks of it.” Stevie combs through Deacon's hair. “He always liked the more...artful styles.”

“Too much care,” Deacon says, gruffly. “Goin' on a long haul and can't take care of it. Buzz it.”

“Can do.”

Stevie wets Deacon's head and cuts the long sections of his hair off with a sharp pair of barber's shears before he pulls out a pair of well-cared for hand clippers to cut the rest of Deacon's hair down. The old man pulls Deacon's hair a couple of times when he doesn't squeeze the clippers fast enough, but considering his age, Deacon's impressed at the quick, sure strokes of Stevie. He switches back to the shears to even out the top. 

“Shorter?” Stevie asks. “I could take a straight razor to it if ya want.”

Deacon runs a hand over his short, wiry hair and thinks on it for a moment. He had gone into this thing thinking he'd be an ex-raider along the lines of Jericho, but since he decided on a whim to be an ex-Gunner, a slightly more polished look isn’t out of the question. Gunners have caps and use them to keep their armour and weapons pristine, but who's to say one wouldn't spend the extra caps and get a bit of a fade in his hair? The lines on his Anchorage haircut have grown in somewhat and are now less noticeable. 

“Nah, this is good," Deacon says. "Long as it's even all around so it doesn't grow out funny, that's all I want.”

Stevie eyes his hair critically in the mirror and circles him a couple of times with his shears, snipping here and there. When he's proclaimed Deacon's hair cut satisfactory, he brushes him down, sweeps the old sheet off him, and tells Deacon that he owes 15 caps. When Deacon's paid (and had a last look at himself in the mirror -the new hair cut really accents the bulk of his new face) he heads back down into the streets. 

He knows Quincy sports an old police precinct and he doesn't think Nick will have occasion to come to Quincy -he might, but Deacon is here now and he could just go check, right? What's the harm in that? Nick's been sitting on this case for _decades_ , no real reason for him to move on it now, and it might be a nice gesture on Deacon’s part of he could collect a bunch of the Winter holotapes (all the holotapes) to give to Nick before he left the Commonwealth. 

Besides, the bar isn't going to be in full swing until the evening anyway and he's got hours to kill before then. 

Quincy’s precinct is outside the main walls of the new town, however, he’s not quite sure where. So, Deacon has to wander through the crumbling neighbourhoods until he finds the building marked: POLICE. It’s a wreck. Most of the second floor's brick walls have been blasted away and the interior of the first floor has clearly seen 200-plus-years of weather damage. 

Deacon’s hopes fall as he enters the building; scavers have picked it clean. He spots a working terminal just inside the door, but there isn’t anything of interest on it. Just a few interrupted reports, but nothing that pertains to Winter. He goes up to the second floor but doesn’t move much beyond the stairs. The floor doesn’t look like it will hold his weight and he really doesn’t want to bring the building down on top of him. 

He doesn’t like Nick _that_ much.

Deacon heads back down to the first floor, feeling a bit defeated and gives the place one last look just in case he’s missed something. He pauses. Something isn’t quite right. The area past the working terminal seems small and cramped. Even for a receptionist’s work area. He heads over. There’s only about a foot of space between a large, ceiling height bookcase and the edge of the desk. 

Hmm. Deacon tries moving the desk, but it’s been bolted to the floor. Probably to prevent the angry citizenry from trying to shove it back at the officer working the desk. He looks back the bookcase. It’s empty of books and Deacon gives it a shove. It scrapes across the floor fairly easily and he notices that next to the wall, in the few inches of space that have been freed from the behind the bookcase, there are a set of hinges. 

A door. Deacon grins. _Yes._

He drags the bookcase completely out of the way and tries the newly revealed door. It's locked. He takes a knee and sets about picking it. The only tool his tool belt actually holds is his trusty screwdriver and it doesn’t take long for him to find the right combination of bent bobby pin and screwdriver force to pop the lock. Soon, he's pulling the door open. 

Deacon 878 – Locks 0

The door leads to a set of stairs. They’re dark, but he can see the faint glimmer of a light at the bottom; one of the lights in the basement must still work. Deacon rolls a chair over and sets a busted terminal on the seat to help keep the door open for the afternoon light. This would be a lot easier if he had a Pip-Boy to light his way, but hell, scavers have been poking around in ruins for 200-years without battery (or bodily) powered lights. He can do it too.

Deacon carefully heads down the stairs, rifle ready to bash any radroaches or shoot any ferals that might be lingering in this dark place. By the time he gets to the bottom, his eyes have grown accustomed to the gloom and it’s easy to see that this place hasn’t been disturbed since the bombs fell. 

The staircase ends in a wall and Deacon turns the corner into the room proper. There’s a line of three cells on the right-hand side of the room and a group of lockers on the left. At the very end, past a fluorescent light that has come off the ceiling on one end and is now dangling a few scant inches from the floor, is a terminal. Maybe his luck is holding; he makes his way to the desk. 

The terminal works and is locked, but really, what piece of technology has ever bested him? He makes short work of the terminals passcode lock and finds exactly what he is looking for: information on the Winter holotapes. One is here, though it doesn’t say exactly where. Well, it says that Officer Hart received it, but who knows where his desk was or where he kept the tape locked up. Upstairs is trashed, so he hopes that the lockers behind him hide the tape, otherwise it's lost to time. 

He stands and heads back to the lockers. He tries all the doors until he comes to a locked one. Locked is good. Locked means that no one else has been into it. He kneels and sets his rifle against the lockers. Deacon's just pulled out his trusty screwdriver and fished out another bobby pin when he hears a pair of light footsteps on the stairs. He grabs his rifle, dropping his tools, and aims it at the newcomer. 

It's the kid from the pharmacy. He starts and his eyes go wide in face of Deacon's rifle. He throws up his hands, somewhat comically, and Deacon lowers the rifle.

“Didn't anyone ever teach you not to sneak up on people who carry guns?”

The kid lowers his hands and scuffs his boots on the floor. “Sure, lots of the Minutemen say that, but they don't shoot before they get a good look at ya.”

“Do I _look_ like a Minuteman to you?” 

“ _No._ ” 

Deacon rolls his eyes at the kid’s petulant tone. “So, why did you sneak up on me?”

“'Cause I saw you pick the lock on the door upstairs and I thought I might be cool to see you do it again.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “For future reference kid, don't sneak up on people who are trying to pick a lock, it usually means they’re either up to no good or scaving, and if you get caught spying on either of those things you will get shot.” Deacon picks up his screwdriver and bobby pin up off the floor.

“Okay, but can I watch?”

Deacon sighs. Clearly, the kid didn't listen to anything he just said. “Alright.”

He bounces over. “I didn't even know there was more to this place than just the busted-up bits upstairs. What are you doing here anyways?”

Deacon starts jimmying the lock. “Looking for something that'll help a friend.”

“A gun?” the kid asks, his tone a just a little too eager.

“No. He's already got one of those. A nice one too.”

“Oh. Then, what?”

Deacon pops the lock open, and smirks. Deacon 879 - Locks 0. He pokes through the locker, and after a moment comes up with a several different holotapes. He turns them over, looking for the EdWi marking on one. He finds it: _EdWi-03_ and shows it to the kid.

“A holotape?” He's less than impressed.

“Lot a knowledge to be found on these things. Don't knock it. Sometimes, small things pack the biggest punch.” Deacon pockets the holotape and notices a pair of patrolman’s sunglasses sitting on the shelf of a locker that has long lost its door. He frowns slightly when he sees them because they would look much better with the ‘asshole’ look he’s trying to pull off than the ones he’s currently wearing, but he likes the ones he has better than the patrolman’s. 

After a small internal debate, he picks them up and exchanges them with the ones he’s got tucked on the edge of his tool belt. Deacon hands them to the kid. He stares at the proffered glasses somewhat dubiously.

“Nothin’ wrong with them,” Deacon says. “These ones just fit my look better. Besides, never too early to start protecting those eyes from the sun’s glare.”

The kid shrugs and takes them with a ‘Thanks’, and tries them on. They’re a bit big for his face, but considering his wild, black hair, the sunglasses are definitely more his speed than Deacon’s.

Satisfied, Deacon trots back to the terminal. He pulls out his knife and scratches a crude heart on the surface of the desk. Inside he puts a 'D'. 

The kid runs his hands over the mark. “Heart D? What's that for?” 

God, this kid asks a lot of questions. Was he this inquisitive when he was that age? 

“Just in case my friend comes here, he'll know I was here first,” Deacon says.

“Oh. So the ‘D’ stands for your name?” 

“Yep.”

“What is your name?”

 _Now there is an excellent is an question,_ Deacon thinks. He stalls. “What's your name, kid?”

“I asked first.”

“I'm bigger than you,” Deacon singsongs; mostly to annoy the kid. It works. He rolls his eyes, but answers:

“Lee. Lee Long.”

 _Long, that name sounds familiar,_ Deacon thinks. _Why?_

He holds out his hand for the kid to take. “I'm Dane,” he says.

Lee takes his hand and pumps it twice. Pretty firm grip for a youngster. Parents must be vendors. Deacon starts to head out of the lock-up. 

“So, why'd you really follow me, Lee?”

The kid frowns. “Mama Murphey made me,” he says.

Deacon starts up the stairs. Great, the tribal seer is asking for him. “Yeah? Why's that?”

“She wants to talk to you about what she saw.” The kid looks down at his feet as he climbs. “I hate this. I wish she would see my future, not everyone else's.”

“Pretty sure it's overrated, Lee. I wouldn't put too much stock in it.” 

Lee looks up at him as Deacon opens the door, a shaft of light falling across his young face. “You don't get it,” he says. “You're an outsider, so you wouldn't. The Minuteman didn't either, but you have to go see her.”

Deacon makes a show of thinking it over. “Uh...no. Not interested. Thanks, though.”

He heads out of the police precinct, slides his new sunglasses on, and thinks about hitting up the town’s diner. He pretty hungry.

Lee scrambles after him. “Wait! Dane! Mister One-Hundred-One!”

Deacon freezes. For the moment, there is absolute silence his brain. Then, he turns. “What?! What did you just call me?” he growls.

The kid stumbles backwards. The look on his face must be pretty scary. “She said to call you that, if you wouldn't listen,” he says, and Deacon has to give the kid credit because his voice is steady. 

It couldn't be. Surely, it's just coincidence. After all, he went to Room 101 for his face change. It has to be that. It just has to be, because if it's not - _no._ He can't even contemplate that.

“She said to say those _exact_ words? You didn't alter them?”

Lee shakes his head. “I have a good memory. I know what she said. You have to go see her now. Before the Jet wears off. She only has the Sight when she's high.”

“How convenient,” he drawls.

The kid bristles, but doesn't say anything. No one likes having their beliefs challenged. 

Deacon stares at the Lee for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. Finally, he says: “Lead on, kid.” and gestures for Lee to take him back into town and to Mama Murphey. 

He has to know if she really does know who he is - _was._

Lee darts through town and Deacon has to trot to keep up. He takes Deacon to the street the diner is on, just across from the motel where Vera lives. There’s a doorway next to the diner that leads to a flight of stairs. About half way up, the kid stops and tells Deacon to head the rest of the way up by himself. Mama Murphey is at the very top. 

The room is dark and warm, and it takes a moment for Deacon's eyes to adjust from the bright September afternoon. He can see a bed straight ahead and a wooden wall with a door in it to the right. To the left is another door and further down that same wall is a small area next to the stair’s railing that has a couch with a TV in front of it. As Deacon steps into the room proper, a voice from the couch beckons him over. 

Mama Murphey is seated on the couch; her clothes are plain but she's covered in beaded necklaces and bracelets. Some look pre-war, others seem to be made from molerat teeth and carved bits of wood. Her head is resting on the back of the couch, with one foot tucked under her leg. Deacon feels supremely uncomfortable to be in this place. His skin always gets this crawly sensation whenever he has to deal with a heavy chem user (Deacon doesn't put Mentats in that category, but Tinker Tom’s special brand are pushing it). 

She lifts one arm and beckons him closer. “I've seen you, kid. I keep seeing you,” she says and lifts her head. Her pale, blue eyes are surprisingly sharp despite riding a Jet high. “A bit of the past and the present, but it’s the future that keeps playing in my head like a holotape on loop.”

Deacon raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Chems'll do that to ya.” 

She smiles. Her teeth glint strangely in the low light. He can't imagine they’re particularly healthy. “You say that with derision in your voice, kid, but you're not wrong. The Commonwealth is gonna need you; she ain’t gonna be what you want.”

“Ah, the vague assertions of a psychic. Just potent enough to make you twist the words to fit your life. I'm not some 13-year-old kid you can cajole into buying chems for you.”

“Then, why are you here?”

Deacon is silent. Why? Because he has to be sure this is some strange coincidence and not a kooky chem user who somehow guessed The Lone Wanderer is in town. 

“Because of the Mr. One-Hundred-One thing, right? I keep seeing that number, over and over, kid. 101. It's like a blazing, yellow brand over everything you've done and everything you will do. I see her too: 111. But there can't be two of you. One will win out; only I can’t see who.”

Deacon feels a surge of anger. “Well, I can tell you right now: it’ll be her. She can have the Commonwealth because my days as _him_ are done.”

Mama Murphey lays her head back down on the couch, apparently satisfied her prophecy has been told. “I hope for all our sakes, that ain’t true.”

He wants to ask her what the hell she means by that, but the rational part of his brain balks at giving this ‘psychic’ the time of day. Deacon turns and heads back down the stairs.

He meets Lee halfway down. The kid is sitting on the steps, right next to the railing. Deacon fishes in his tool belt for his caps.

“Hey, Lee,” Deacon says.

The kid turns. “What did she say?”

He shrugs. “Something about a woman not being what I want.”

Lee’s face falls. “Oh. That doesn’t sound that important.”

“Don’t put so much faith in her predictions of the future; the best predictor of that is the past. But, hey, here-” Deacon holds out 45 caps. “-since I got the reading instead of you: a full refund.”

The kid’s face lights up and he almost reaches for the money but stops. “I don’t need charity.”

“No charity. You paid for me, so I’ll pay for you. Even Steven.”

Lee hesitates a moment longer before he pockets the caps. “Thanks.”

“Sure, but maybe wait until I leave town to try again, yeah?”

The kid smiles. “Yeah. You leavin’ soon, Dane?”

“What? That eager to get rid of me?”

“Well…”

Deacon laughs. “I’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll try again in a couple of days.” Lee stands. “Have a safe trip and all that.”

“I will. See you around, Lee.”

The kid nods and trots down the stairs. Deacon follows a little slower, trying to parse the meaning in Mama Murphey’s prediction. What she said about Nora not being what he wanted could mean so many things, and without some kind of clarity, he’d never know if that was good or bad. 

He shakes his head. Why is he even considering that there may be some deeper meaning behind the ravings of a chem addled loon? He resolves to forget he even had the conversation with Mama Murphey and by the time he makes it back into the street, Lee is long gone.

\- - - - - 

Quincy’s bar is just inside the town’s northern entrance and the sign above it boldly proclaims that the place does indeed have: LIQUOR. Just in case you weren’t sure what a bar sold, they’ve got you covered. There is a scaffolding ramp that leads to the door, another one of those steel and wood repairs. The bar itself is small, with only a single table shoved in one corner and five stools at the bar’s counter. 

At the table are two men, who are judging every patron of the bar with a quick glance. Deacon can see the stylized claw on their armbands. Deathclaws. Perfect. He might get in with them here after all. Deacon takes a seat at the bar’s only free stool. It takes the bartender a moment of come over to him because he’s in the middle of a story, or maybe it’s a joke. There's a chorus of laughter from the last two stools and the bartender moves toward Deacon.

The bartender greets him with a grin. “Hey, what can I get ya?”

He could really go for a whiskey right now but probably best for his insides that he doesn’t go for whatever moonshine is served here. People like to joke that Bobrov’s Best causes blindness, but he knows that Vadim has perfected the recipe for maximum intoxication and minimal harm (Well, that last one is relative, he supposes. Liver failure is a real possibility if you drink too much of it). Besides, it’s probably better for him that he maintains some level of clear-headedness.

“Got beer?”

“Sure. Brewed right here in town with our very own razorgrain crops. Best beer in the ‘Wealth.”

Deacon nods. “I’ll have one.”

“15 caps,” the bartender says as he turns and grabs a bottle out of the Nuka-Cola machine behind him.

Deacon lays the caps on the table and is pretty excited for a cold beer. 

The bartender cracks the lid, keeps the cap, and hands over the beer. “You come in with a caravan?”

“No. Just passin’ through,” Deacon says and takes a sip of his beer, and damn, it’s way better than the swill they serve at The Third Rail. He makes an appreciative sound. “Scavin’, merc-in’. Whatever pays the bills. Don’t much matter.”

“I hear ya. Though, if you’re lookin’ for something more permanent, the Minutemen are always in need of members with knowledge of weapons and the ‘Wealth. You look like you’ve got both.”

Deacon snorts. What is this guy? Their recruiter? “Thanks for the compliment, but the day I join those boy scouts, the world will end again. And after the hell that was the first time, why put the ‘Wealth through that again?”

The bartender laughs. “That was my thoughts exactly nearly twenty years ago, but I was broke and needed a bed and three squares, so I joined thinking I would get out after I had some caps in my pocket.” He leans on the bar in front of Deacon. “Stayed with ‘em for fifteen years. Joining was the best thing I ever did.”

“Yeah? Why you here then?” 

“Got in a tangle with a yao guai. Bastard bit and broke the bones in my lower leg. Never set right, even after I seen a doctor. Can’t make the patrol rounds anymore and always wanted a bar. Seemed best not to linger after my usefulness was through.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

The bartender waves him off. “Happy where I am now, and try to pay forward all the good the Minutemen did me by recruiting other misfits to join their cause.”

Deacon laughs gruffly. “Misfit I am, Minuteman I’m not. They’re a little too goodie-two-shoes for my tastes. Probably help a synth if they came across one broken and bleedin’.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“‘Not’ should be the answer every damn time. I think I’m better off where I am, and they’re better of without me.” He lifts his bottle. “Thanks for the beer,” Deacon says; the ‘fuck off’ implied at the end. 

The bartender knocks the counter with his knuckles and nods; a look of disappointment crossing his face for a moment. He leaves Deacon to drink the rest of his beer in silence as he watches the Claws out of the corner of his eye. When he’s done, Deacon grabs his rifle and heads out. 

He meanders back across town, feeling his hunger return from where Mama Murphey and her prediction had quashed it. He heard the Claws stand from their table when Deacon left, and he’s certain they are following his path across the town. 

The diner, like the bar, is a small affair. A few booths sit along the windows, with six stools along the counter. The place is just starting to get busy, and Deacon takes a booth in anticipation of having a couple of guests. He’s just ordered the daily special and a Nuka-Cola when the two Deathclaws he spied at the bar slide into the booth with him.

Deacon gives them a once over. One has light hair and dark skin, the other has dark hair and light skin. He’s going to call them Yin and Yang since he’s not going to remember their real names. They are both have the ‘Waste hardened’ look that most mercs sport after years spent wandering.

“Fuck off,” Deacon says, voice a rough rumble.

“Whoa, no need to bite our heads off, brother,” Yin says. 

“Yeah,” Yang agrees with a grin. “We’re real friendly. To the right people, of course.”

Deacon raises an annoyed eyebrow. “Ain’t we all, but this ain’t a session of kumbaya, and I ain’t a part of your club-” he waves his hand at their armbands, “-so beat it.”

“Don’t wanna hear what we’re offerin’?” Yin asks.

“You payin’ for my food?”

Yin and Yang share a moment of silent conversation, at the end of which Yin shrugs and Yang turns back to Deacon.

“Sure, he says.

The waitress returns with Deacon’s Nuka Cola and takes orders for two more drinks. Yin pays for them and Deacon’s meal. When everyone’s thirst is satiated, Yang starts talking.

“We’re always lookin’ for your type of people-”

“Badass muthafuckers,” Yin interjects. There’s no noise of protest from Yang and Deacon suspects it’s all a show. He’s appropriately unimpressed.

“-to join our group. Or gang, as some like to call it. We have been lookin’ for someone like you to roll through this place for a couple of weeks and Jake and me think you got what it takes to roll with us.”

Deacon likes Yin better than Jake. He slouches back in his seat. “So aside from peggin’ me as a merc who can take care of himself -not exactly rocket science there- what exactly makes you think I even want to roll with you?”

“We’re like-minded, brother,” Yin says. “You don’t like the Minutemen; we don’t like the Minutemen. You’re a badass; all of us are badasses. You don’t like synths; hell, we wrote the book on not likin’ synths.”

 _Maybe not wrote the book,_ Deacon thinks, _but certainly added a few chapters to the brutality section._

His food arrives then, a mirelurk steak with some sort of red sludge on top. He didn’t even look at what the special was, just ordered it; he hopes this is edible. He takes a few bites of his food as he pretends to thinks about what Yin and Yang have said (and oh God, this may just be his new favourite food). 

“What’s in it for me?”

Yang smirks. “The time honoured question of a merc. Well, pal, here’s what’s in it for you: room and board, membership in a group that ‘gets’ you, and lots of opportunities to kill synths, since that’s kinda what we do. You gotta a grudge against them? We're the place to hang your rifle.”

Deacon makes a show of checking behind his shoulder, then around the two Claws at his table. Like anyone who is wary of their surroundings, Yin and Yang also look around, a pair of confused looks settling over their faces.

“Just wondering if a Vault-Tec rep was about to come around the corner and tell me I’d won entrance to a Vault,” Deacon says as he slices off another bite of the mirelurk steak. “Sounds about as plausible as what your sellin’.”

Yin raises an eyebrow and grins. “Tough sell, eh? That’s cool. Tomorrow is the deadline for initiates to show up at our main camp, which means Joey and I are cuttin’ it close by pinnin’ our recruitment hopes on you. We’re headed back to Jamaica Plains now, but you think you might be interested in becoming one of us? Then, hit us up at the old church at Jamaica Plains; can’t miss it.”

The two slide out of the booth then, leaving Deacon to the rest of his supper. Jake and Joey, huh? That’s almost as good as Yin and Yang. Almost. Well, at least he got a free dinner out of those assholes. Deacon finishes and asks the waitress what special actually was. Mirelurk and salsa. _Oh._ Salsa never looked like that in the vault. Either way, it was really good. He’ll have to come back for more after this whole exercise in vomit inducing undercover work is done.

He spends the rest of the afternoon soaking up the sun, basking in what will likely be his last moment of peace for some time.

\- - - - -

Deacon doesn’t sleep well that night; he has nightmares. Well, he’s pretty sure he has nightmares because he can’t exactly remember the dream, just the certain feeling of panic crawling across his skin, the ringing echoes of laughter in his ears, and this fresh headache from hell. He hasn’t even officially joined up with the Deathclaws and he’s already freaking out. _Great._

He crawls out of bed the same time the sun starts rising, knowing he won’t get another wink of sleep, and starts cleaning his rifle. He hasn’t technically fired it since the last time he cleaned it, but if he doesn’t find some meaningless task for his hands to focus on, he’s going to go out of his mind. The process is soothing, and half way through he recovers enough of himself to start whistling. 

By the time the sounds of the town have fully swung into their morning routine, Deacon’s cleaned his rifle, his knife, and his armour; counted his bullets, stims, dried food rations, containers of purified water, and the number of buttons on his shirts (21). If he spends another moment in this room, he's going to start counting the number of diamonds on the wallpaper. He repacks all of his things, gears up, and heads to Fenton’s food stand for some breakfast on-the-go.

It takes him about 4 hours to walk from Quincy to Jamaica Plains. 

He’s never been to the community; never been interested in the so-called ‘treasure’ that lingers in this place. Scaver’s have some wild tales about what they think the Jamaica Plains’ treasure is: from Old-World gold to some secret weapon. Deacon is pretty sure that the treasure is some Old-World artifact from the Revolutionary War or something equally as useless. If a scaver knew their history, they wouldn’t come up with such outlandish tales.

Jamaica Plains' church is visible from the road; its bell tower is what travelers use to mark the half way point between Quincy and the ruins of Boston. Deacon turns into town, rifle held loosely in his hands, but ready, in case something goes wrong. As he picks his way through the ruins, he finds that the place is strangely quiet. When he passed by here on his way down to Quincy, the ruckus from the Deathclaw camp could be heard on the wind, now there only seems to be a low murmuring in the distance. Signs of life are easily seen as Deacon nears the church, but the town’s inhabitants are missing. A seed of dread begins to blossom in his gut.

“Hey! It’s our sour-faced friend from Quincy!” Yin calls as Deacon approaches the group. 

“We were afraid that our legendary skills as fast-talkers were about to be called out, but we musta made an impression on you, ‘cause here you are,” Yang chimes in. 

There’s a group of seven people standing in front of the church. Only three are wearing Claw armbands. 

“The impression was: you talk too fuckin’ much,” Deacon replies, and the unknown Deathclaw smirks. 

“Look at you, makin’ a good impression on the doc. Good plan, cause when we’re done, you’re gonna need him,” Yang says. “Well, now that we’re all here, let’s get this show on the road. Lead on, Bones.”

The third Deathclaw, Bones, turns and starts out across the town without so much as a word. Not that he could get a chance to say anything; Yin and Yang chatter the whole way.

“So, there’s an initiation test that all new members have to go through-”

“Hell, all the old ones had to too, when Savage took over,” Yang cuts in.

Yin nods. “Yep. Anyways, this is how we test your mettle. See, we have long term goals that require the toughest sons-of-bitches the ‘Wealth has to offer, and we don’t need anyone who can’t make the grade.”

As they head north through town, the murmur that could be heard in the distance grows. It almost sounds like the heartbeat of some great monster. Yin and Yang point out buildings and areas in the town that The Deathclaws use, but Deacon tunes them out. They aren’t saying anything worth noting, and the noise that they are walking toward has him worried.

Deacon looks around at the group, aside from the Claws there are four others. Three have the look of raiders about them: scraggly clothing, crude armour, and one is clearly high on something. Psycho, Deacon guesses from the twitching of the guy’s hand where it clutches the handle of a baseball bat. The other is a thick, well-built man that might have once been a Gunner, but is certainly a merc. He’s shorter than Deacon, but he’s got to have at least 50 pounds on him. Deacon's not sure what they are walking into, but whatever it is, the raiders are not a concern. The hulking merc is.

Just before they round another street corner, Deacon can finally make out the noise on the wind. It’s an entire crowd of people shouting: FRESH MEAT! FRESH MEAT! over and over again. Deacon’s dread is quickly going from a blossom to an oak tree. As they round said corner and come into full view of the where the chant is coming from, Deacon almost stumbles to a stop. 

The chant is coming from an arena. 

It’s been set up in an old parking lot that’s in the shadow of the Jamaica Plains billboard. The walls are a thick collection of welded steel panels, barbed wire, and repurposed electrical power poles. There’s a catwalk at the top of the walls, circling the arena, where the crowd of Claws is chanting, and a small, steel man door at the bottom that is currently barred.

He’s going to have to fight these other initiate assholes to get in. _Fuck._ Deacon glances over at the merc, and he finds the hulking man sizing him up. He’s obviously thinking what Deacon had been a few short moments ago: that the raiders won’t be a problem, but Deacon will be. _Good;_ he plans on being a big, fucking problem.

Then, suddenly, there’s a deafening roar from inside the area. The crowd above goes silent as it reaches its crescendo; then they cheer as the roar subsides.

 _A deathclaw._ The fucking Deathclaws have a fucking deathclaw! _And me without my power armour,_ Deacon thinks wildly.

“And there’s ole’ Mammy, gettin’ all restless for some action,” Yang says with a grin.

“I’m not fuckin’ goin’ in there!” One of the raiders says, panic evident in his voice. “You never said nothin’ about having to fight no fuckin’ deathclaw.”

“If we had, would you have come?” Yin asks. “Of course not. That’s why it’s a surprise. Now, the rules are very simple.” Yin leads them to a large trunk next to the man-door. “Leave your guns here-”

“Knives and melee weapons are acceptable,” Yang cuts in.

“-And the last one alive gets to join!”

Jesus _fuck._ It got worse. It got way worse. How is he going to surviving a deathclaw and these other assholes? _If_ Deacon gets out of this alive, he’s going to demand some serious compensation from the Railroad, because this is bullshit. Utter and complete _bullshit_. 

The raider that made the protest starts backing away, shaking his head. “No. No fuckin' way. This is nuts!”

Yin and Yang nod.

“Probably,” Yang says, “But here’s the thing: you go into the area and you have a 1 in 5 chance of surviving, _or_ we kill you now and you have no chance of surviving.”

“Hell, the rest of 'em,” Yin gestures to Deacon and company, “Would probably like it if we did. 1 in 4 is better odds than 1 in 5.”

The bulky merc makes a grunt of annoyance. “Let’s just get this over with,” he says and dumps his shotgun and pack in the trunk. 

“Now that’s the spirit!” Yang says with a laugh. “If you get out alive, ole’ Sawbones here will patch you up, right as rain.” He gestures to the silent Claw. He’s a dour looking fellow about Sun’s age. 

Are all doctors crabby? Is that a thing? Deacon mentally counts them off: Li, Pinkerton, Church, Sun, Carrington, this Sawbones dude. Only James ever seemed to actually enjoy his profession. Well, and Braun, but that was a different sort of enjoyment.

Deacon steps over to the trunk and puts his rifle and bag in it as well. Yin watches him with interest.

“No pressure or anything, brother,” Yin says, “but if you die, that sweet rifle of yours is mine.”

“I won’t be dyin’,” Deacon replies. “So you’d best keep dreamin’.”

Yin laughs.

Yang gestures to the other three with a revolver he pulled out of its holster, and two raiders reluctantly deposit their guns in the trunk. The last, with a baseball bat (that's wrapped in barbed wire), is allowed to keep it with him. The other two pull out switchblades, Deacon pulls out his combat knife, and the hulking merc cracks his knuckles. 

Yin pulls back the bolt on the man-door with a flourish and gestures for the five of them to step inside. 

If the arena was crude looking on the outside, the inside is something else altogether. It reeks of blood, piss, and death, as well as the musky odor of a deathclaw. The walls are pitted, scratched and gouged. Some of the damage is clearly from the deathclaw, other spots look like man-made marks. The cracked concrete ground is stained a rust colour from the blood spilt on it.

The catwalk Deacon observed from the outside goes in a horseshoe shape around the area. At the north end, in front of the billboard, there is a top of a building visible through the walls of the area, and a small group of people watches from the comfort of chairs. Deacon figures they must be the leaders of the gang.

At the west side of the arena, the deathclaw, Mammy, is waiting. Her long tail swishing in displeasure. She eyes them as they step into the grounds, but doesn’t move from her perch. Deacon can see a collar around her neck and imagines that she’s currently on a chain that will be released momentarily. Behind them, Yin slams the gate closed. 

In the Capital Wasteland, Deacon helped the Brotherhood eradicate the pockets of deathclaws in the north, around the ruins of Raven Rock (back when he was still on good terms with the Brotherhood of Steel). Deathclaws, unlike yao guai, don’t have a true place in the Wasteland ecosystem. They have no predators (human’s barely count since it usually takes a small army to take one out), they eat everything but mirelurks (which might be their one saving grace if they did) and breed like crazy. 

If a yao guai population gets out of control, they will either die out due to a lack of food, or attack brahmin herds; earning the ire of the rancher and a cull order. However, yao guai are useful for keeping the molerat and radstag populations down, which in turn helps keep mirelurk populations down. 

Deathclaws cause nothing but trouble and often threaten human settlements without provocation. If a deathclaw stumbles across one, it’s somehow the settlement’s problem for choosing to make its home in the deathclaw’s path. 

Basically, deathclaws are the raider assholes of the animal population. 

Deacon suspects that if no humans had survived the Great War, deathclaws would naturally die out due to a lack of food and/or having to share their food source with yao guai. As it is, humans have to step in. 

What Deacon learned hunting deathclaws with the Brotherhood is that the trick to taking down one is _distraction._

Deathclaws like two things: their children and blood; they dislike two things: things attacking their children, and things in their territory. The five of them in the arena are clearly in Mammy’s territory, and she will show them the enormity of her displeasure once the chain is released. 

The arena is too small to avoid her razor-sharp claws for long, so they need a distraction. Deacon’s grip tightens on his knife. They can hear the rattling of the chain and Mammy is a few short seconds from being unleashed upon them. Deacon darts behind the nearest raider (who is too busy staring gobsmacked at the deathclaw to realize that this has become a fight to the death) and slits his throat. As he claws at the spurting gash, Deacon shoves him forward, so that he stumbles and collapses away from them. 

The crowd cheers. Like any proper arena, it’s not just the deathclaw that enjoys the blood.

When Mammy is released she charges forward, but the scent of fresh blood causes her to pause near the dying raider as she laps the warm blood pooling on the group. In the momentary lull, the raider with the baseball bat charges at Deacon. Maybe he was friends with the raider Deacon killed, maybe he’s just trying to be proactive, but Deacon has to dive to avoid getting clipped with the barbed wire bat. 

The dead raider is only a distraction for so long (what with the four other living creatures in Mammy’s territory), and she lets out a loud roar as she charges the merc and the other raider.

The raider with the baseball bat is swinging wildly at Deacon and he can’t get a moment to recover. He has to keep backing away, or jumping out of the path of the bat, and he’s rapidly running out of room. The raider doesn’t seem to have a rhyme or reason to his strikes. One moment he’s going for Deacon’s face, next his legs, then his arm, his side, his legs again. It might be comical in another situation to see him dancing about, but Deacon is just getting angry and frustrated. 

There’s a roar in front of him and the crowd cheers again. Deacon can’t spare a moment to look and see what's happened, but he guesses they’re now down two people. Suddenly, his back hits the arena’s wall. _Fuck._

The raider brings the baseball bat down on Deacon and he throws up his arms in an ‘x’ to take the force of the blow and protect his face. He howls as the barbed wire slams into the unprotected flesh of his arms, and again as the raider pulls the bat back, causing more damage as the barbs rip their way out of his skin and shredding the sleeves of his shirt.

If he wasn’t running on adrenaline before, the pain has made certain he is now. As the raider draws back to hit Deacon again, he shoves off the wall and throws his full weight into the raider with a growl. They tumble to the ground, the force of the impact knocking the bat out of the raider’s grip. The raider is dazed from cracking his head against the concrete and it allows Deacon to scramble up right. He slits the raider’s throat before he has a moment to recover.

Deacon stands, blood running down his arm and making the grip on his knife slippery. He looks around for the bat. The moment he spies it, he also sees the bulky merc making a beeline for it. The deathclaw is momentarily distracted by ripping the other raider apart, and the merc has slipped away to do away with the last man standing between him and life. 

The merc is closer to the bat than he is and Deacon makes a split second decision to throw his knife. The merc is wearing chest armour, like Deacon, but unlike Deacon, he doesn’t have leg guards. It’s been a while since he practiced knife throwing, and he vows that if he lives through this, he will practice both that and loading rounds into his rifle. He’ll do it until his fingers bleed. 

The knife embeds itself into the muscles of merc's leg and he stumbles to the ground with a grunt. Deacon scrambles over to the bat and his hands barely close over the handle, when the ground starts shaking as Mammy charges them. Deacon and the merc dive in opposite directions to avoid Mammy’s swiping claws. He can feel the swift movement of air just above him, letting him know he almost didn’t make it out of the way in time. 

There a sound of disappointment from the crowd as the deathclaw misses them.

Deacon rights himself, bat hanging heavily in one hand. It’s oddly weighted with the barbed wire, but the handle is familiar in his grasp. He’s never had to kill someone with a bat, preferring to hit home runs (or as far as you could in the confines of a vault) instead of people, but he will kill the hulking merc with it if the deathclaw doesn’t do it first. 

Mammy has found the raider Deacon just killed and is snuffling around his corpse. The merc and Deacon look at one another (his knife gripped tightly in the merc’s hand, blood soaking the man’s pant leg), then they glance at Mammy. They have a small window of opportunity here to try and kill one another before the deathclaw decides that the raider isn’t worth her time and comes after the last two people in her territory. 

They charge at one and another, Deacon bringing the bat up to bear and remembering to keep his elbows level, even as the heavy end of the bat wants to drag his arms down to better support it. The crowd starts chanting KILL! KILL! in the background, but it’s a distant noise. Deacon needs to focus on bringing down the merc. 

Deacon fakes high to draw the merc’s defences and then swings low like he’s trying for a ground ball, and catches the merc in the shins. He cries out and goes down. The bat gets tangled in the fabric of the man’s jeans and it’s ripped from Deacon’s grasp. The deathclaw looks up from the raider’s body, drawn by the fresh scent of blood. A low, rumbling growl breaks across the area, and the merc is trying to untangle himself from the bat, as Mammy begins stalking over. 

Deacon shoves up the tattered remains of his sleeves and wipes the blood on his forearms on the back of the merc’s armour and jeans. He backs away, trying to keep a low profile as Mammy moves in to investigate the merc. 

The man-door is on the other side of the area and he’s going to have to pass behind the deathclaw to get to it. Deacon gives Mammy’s tail a wide berth as he slips around behind her. The crowd is still chanting KILL! KILL! as the deathclaw sniffs the merc. He’s trying to scramble away, but the bat is still caught up in his jeans and he can’t find a good angle to tear it off. 

Oddly, the deathclaw isn’t as interested in the merc as she was in the three raiders that proceeded him. Deacon might have thought that was due to her having her fill of the others, but she hasn’t eaten any of the bodies, just lapped at their blood or torn them apart. Deacon edges along the wall, watching both the nearness of the man-door and the actions of Mammy. She bats at the merc, almost as if she isn’t quite sure what to do with him. The merc slashes at her hands with Deacon’s knife, catching her in the tender flesh of her palm. She roars as blood starts to leak out of the gash and crushes his head with her massive jaw, bloody-gore splashing the ground. 

Mammy shakes her head, dislodging the bits of bone and brain matter, looking to all the world like a kid who just got a taste of something nasty. There’s a moment of silence from the crowd, then a single shout of SYNTH! get’s everyone chanting that word over and over again. The deathclaw turns in place, looking for the last creature in her territory.

When Mammy catches sight of Deacon, there’s a moment where the two of them stare at each other. Then, Deacon turns and runs full-tilt toward the man-door. The heavy steps of the deathclaw shaking the ground beneath his feet as she quickly gains on him. He rams into the closed door and starts beating on it. Deacon spares a look behind him at the rapidly approaching deathclaw and vows to drop a Goddamned mini-nuke on this fucking arena before he leaves. He doesn’t know where he’ll find one or a Fat-Man launcher, but like Scarlett said, ‘As God is my witness,’ he’ll fucking find one.

The door is yanked open and Deacon tumbles through the opening. Yin slams the door closed and bolts it as Mammy throws herself against the arena’s walls with an angry roar. He kneels on the ground, the uneven concrete digging into his knees. The cuts on his arms are stinging from him abusing them earlier and his head is pounding hard enough to burst. 

He should get two mini-nukes. Just to be sure. 

Yang crouches down beside him. “Hey, look at you, pal! Made it out alive with nary a scratch. Not many of us survivors can boast that. Congrats.”

“Too bad,” Yin says from behind him, “was looking forward to getting that rifle. Oh, well. And, FYI, that shotgun is mine, brother. So don’t go pickin’ it out after Bones has had a look at you.”

Deacon pushes himself off the ground and finds the doctor looking at him with mild interest. Deacon turns to Yin and snarls, “Go get my fucking knife.”

Then, he follows Bones away from the arena, Yin’s laughter and the crowd's chant of FEAST! FEAST! following him.

Deacon thinks he might be sick.

\- - - - -

The doctor’s clinic is on the other side of town, on the same street as the church, a few doors down. The building is an old house that is listing somewhat to the left. The main floor is dedicated to a clinic and there are two Deathclaws members lying on the clinic’s beds looking like they need some medical attention. Bones breezes past them and points to the gurney in the middle of the room.

There’s a screen to one side that could probably be drawn around the gurney if need be, but Bones ignores that as well. Deacon hops onto the gurney, feeling marginally less like puking, though the headache isn’t helping. As long as he doesn’t imagine the sound the jaws of Mammy made while she crunched through the merc’s head, he’ll keep his lunch.

Bones grabs a pair of bandage scissor and slices Deacon’s shirt sleeves off at the elbow. At least the shirt is still wearable. If Sun had gotten a hold of it, it’d be in tatters by now. Bones examines the gouges on his arm and grabs a pair of tweezers to pick the bits of rubble out of the wounds. He’s not kind and Deacon winces in pain; Sun would be, or at the very least poke him with an unwanted shot of Med-X. To keep his mind off the pain, Deacon looks over at the Claws on the beds. They look like they have laser wounds. Possibly from the Minutemen or the Gunners. He wonders why they haven’t been looked at. 

“You’ve fought deathclaws before,” Bones says, after several minutes of silence punctuated only by Deacon’s grunts of pain. “Knew they liked blood more than intruders.”

“Yeah,” Deacon replies. 

“Not many initiates do. Handy skill to have.”

“Certainly was today.”

Bones hums in agreement and continues picking rubble out of the wounds. After a few moments more he puts the tweezers aside and opens a can of purified water. He gestures for Deacon to hold out his forearms and Bones pours the water on Deacon’s arms, washing away any lingering dirt and rubble. The bloodied water splashes on the floor and Bones is headless of it. Deacon nearly cringes. He wonders what kind of infections must linger in this place if that sort of thing goes unchecked. 

Once Deacon’s arms are clean of debris, Bones injects him with a stim. As the wounds close and the pain in both his arms and head lessens, the doctor speaks again:

“You will likely need my services again. It is inevitable, however, if you foolishly engage a force you cannot defeat, like those idiots over there,” Bones gestures to the two Claws on the beds. “you can expect a minimal amount of treatment. Stims do not grow on trees and my time is precious. Your best bet is to keep a supply of stims in your bunk locker or better yet, exercise discretion.” The doctor sneers. “However, I realize that you types aren’t capable of it. You may call me Sawbones or Bones, depending on your preference; I don’t have one.” Bones points to the clinic’s door. “Go. Those two cheerful idiots are likely waiting for you at the bunk house.”

Deacon nods and doesn’t say anything. Silence seems like the best option in face of this medico’s awful temperament. He slides off the gurney and heads to the door. He almost feels sorry that the Deathclaws have Bones as their doctor. Probably would if they weren’t a group of raging, bigoted assholes. 

As he stands on the stoop of the clinic, Deacon inspects his forearms. There is a mess of spidery, white scars where the barbed wire gouges were before. He rubs the scars as he trots down the short stairs and feels utterly overwhelmed. He has to take several deep breaths to calm himself.

The streets are still empty, but the sounds of cheering have died down. Soon, the streets will be full of the Deathclaw members. He walks west down the street; to the left is a large brick building that is still standing and its neighbour that is not. Yin and Yang are leaning against the front door of the intact building, talking in low tones. 

Yin catches sight of him first. “Hey, brother, looking right as rain now. Hope Sawbones didn’t make you squirm too much with his pokin’ and prodin’.”

Deacon shrugs. “Had worse.”

“Ain’t we all?” Yang asks. He kicks the trunk from the arena. It’s sitting between the two of them. “So here’s the fun part: you get first pick of the spoils, plus the return of your own gear.”

Yin lifts the lid. “Open sesame!”

Deacon pulls out his things, trying to shake the congealing blood off his knife before he sheathes it. Then, he picks out the baseball bat. The wood is worn and ill looked after, but he sees the ‘Louisville Slugger’ brand poking out from under the barbed wire. For some reason, this bat wants to be his.

“Ah, good choice,” Yang says with a grin. “Classic swatter, right there.”

“And even better, you left that sweet shotgun for me,” Yin adds. “Thanks. So now that we’ve got that over and done with, let’s show you your bunk.” He opens the door and slips inside. Yang gestures for Deacon to go first, and with his gear in hand, he does.

The first area inside the building is a rec room in what was probably the place’s old store floor. The counter, that once held a cash register and various goods, is now a wet bar. The main floor area is taken up with ratty looking couches and chairs and spent chem containers of every sort litter the surface of the coffee and end tables. The trashcans are overflowing with empty liquor bottles and purified water cans. There are a couple of dirty rugs on the floors, and someone has painted a surprisingly good deathclaw hand on the wall in the style of the gang’s symbol. There is other graffiti on the walls that doesn’t bare mentioning besides being both lude and rude. 

There are two bathrooms on the main floor, and both are unspeakably filthy. However, there are a couple of filled buckets of water, so at the very least, the plumbing in the place still works. That’s probably the only good thing Deacon will ever think about the place. Yin explains that showers are either to be taken when it rains or out in the lake west of town. In the winter, the lake doesn’t usually freeze hard or an entrepreneurial spirit can collect and warm snow in an old tin tub that’s kept in the storage room.

Deacon’s skin crawls just being in this place. How do people live in this level of filth? At this rate, the Railroad is never going to be able to repay him for this mission.

Upstairs, there are four small apartments that judging from the crude metal and wood walls, used to be two apartments, and each holds three sets of bunk beds and six lockers. 24 initiates and low-ranking members of the gang call this place home. The higher-level members, like Yin and Yang, bunk in a few of the intact houses around town, five to a house. The five highest ranking members have a place to themselves like the doctor or bunk with just one other person. 

Yin and Yang recently moved out of the bunkhouse and into one of the other houses. They are currently trying to earn their second names. All high-ranking members have a second name along the lines of the savagery that the title Deathclaw implies. This distinguishes them from the rest of the group, though really, the nicer quarters should do it. 

They show Deacon to the old room the two of them used to bunk in. 

“There're no upper bunks left,” Yin says with a laugh. “Georgie probably flipped for it with that trick coin of hers.”

Yang shakes his head with a grin. “Idiots. How have they not figured that out yet?”

Yin shrugs and checks under the pillow of the closest upper bunk. “Yep, this is Georgie’s alright. Look,” he holds up a _Silver Shroud_ comic, “she’s got her boyfriend and everything.”

They laugh. 

“If I were you,” Yang says, looking at Deacon. “I’d park it under Georgie. She’s less likely to fuck with your shit than the other two.”

“Plus, she’s light. Less bed creakin’ at night. Unless, ya know, you can talk her into it," Yin adds with some comical eyebrow waggling.

They laugh again and Deacon rolls his eyes behind his glasses. 

“Park your shit on the bed, and then come with us to the church. We’ve got an induction ceremony to get to,” Yin says.

“Don’t worry about it getting’ stolen, brother. That’s a huge no-no ‘round here. Savage Zac has strung-up enough offenders that no one will look twice at your shit. You can claim a locker later.”

Deacon nods and tosses his things on the bunk below Georgie, placing the barbed bat on the floor under the bed so it doesn’t get tangled in the scrap of fabric that passes as a blanket. He slings the strap of his rifle over one shoulder and heads out to the church with Yin and Yang.

Back out on the streets, the crowd is heading toward the church and Deacon, Yin, and Yang follows the flow of people. A few Claws recognize him and give him grins or slap him on the back with a ‘That was awesome!’. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but Deacon tries to be as accepting of the praise as possible. 

It’s not that he killed those men, they very likely deserved it, it’s the callous way the Claws are treating life that’s putting Deacon off. As if killing and death are just another sport like baseball or a game like _Caravan_ to be won or lost for the pleasure of the crowd. Instead of a losing team or lost caps, it’s a lost life.

He’s just as guilty of it, he knows. Those raiders in the Corvega Assembly Plant are a prime example. After all, he didn’t kill them because of some higher cause, or because he had to. No. He went there to burn off his anger, knowing that they would pick a fight with him. He treated their lives just as callously as these men are treating the ones who died in that arena. 

Deacon sees the kind of person he wants to be, but he keeps falling short of that ideal. He’s not sure if his goal is the problem or himself because he’s always falling back on violence to solve his problems, to get him through tough situations. Why? Is that all he’s capable of? Is he no better than the Old-Worlders that came before? 

Now there’s a truly frightening thought. 

He tries to shake off his introspectiveness. Now isn’t the time for a life questioning thoughts. He has to focus on where he is now. He has to fit in, to listen, to find the chinks in this gang’s armour, and he has to figure out how to get to University Point to talk with Glory without getting made. He doesn’t have space in his head for anything else. 

As they approach the doors of the church, Yin and Yang make him hold back outside the building as the rest of the gang members shuffle in. Deacon peers in through the door to watch as they find seats. There’s a group of five at the far end of the church and he is pretty sure they are the highest ranking members; he recognizes Sawbones right away.

The interior of the church has been changed into what amounts to a large dining hall. The pews have been moved sideways and set around tables of varying shapes. Lanterns sit on the tables at even intervals. On one side of the space is a wood stove, shelves of pre and post war goods, and a table full to the brim with food and alcohol. At the far end, in front of the altar is a table facing the room, with a row of six chairs on the one side. A couple banners hang from the ceiling, dyed a crude black and painted with a white, stylized claw on each. 

Aside from the armbands, the painting on the wall of the bunkhouse, and these banners, Deacon has seen no other signs of the Deathclaws' symbol. He didn’t even realize that Jamaica Plains was home to the Claws until he was back at HQ and got the run down from Dez and Sly Nick. It’s smart, not actively advertising their home base to the Commonwealth, Deacon will give them that.

Once all the gang members have shuffled into the church (there’s got to be at least fifty), a broad-shouldered man steps forward.

“Was that a helluva show or what?” he asks the crowd and there’s an answering cheer. “Jake and Joey sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Yin and Yang head through the doors of the church, but not before Yin tells him to stay put until called for. They strut down the aisle of the church, hamming it up, as the crowd’s accolades wash over them.

“At this rate boys, you’ll be getting your second name in no time.”

Yin and Yang take their seats, the gang members around them jostling them good-naturedly. 

“Now,” the broad-shouldered man continues, “it’s time we meet our surviving newcomer.” He waves his hand at Deacon and all eyes shift down toward him.

Deacon starts down the aisle, making sure to draw himself up to his full height. He can be intimidating when he wants to, and right now he needs to be ‘Enclave power armour’ intimidating. There is more crowd cheering as he walks and he wants to relax enough to nod acceptance for it, but he’s spine is rigid. The deathclaw fight is playing on repeat in his head and he knows that he almost didn’t survive this initiation. Cheating death is often a euphoric moment, but right now Deacon just feels sick. He shouldn’t have accepted this mission.

He doesn't think he can do this.

When he reaches the altar, the broad-shouldered man claps him on the back. From this distance, Deacon can see he has high cheek bones and a wide nose and that they’re almost the same height.

“You didn’t waste any time on the murderin’ or the mayhem. Best showin’ we’ve had in a long fuckin’ time.”

“Thanks,” Deacon rumbles.

“Stop crowding him, Johnny,” a light voice says, and the broad-shouldered man steps back from him. For a moment, Deacon thinks it’s the group’s only woman that is speaking. Then, there’s a movement on the raised platform behind the table. A sixth person is leaning on the railing overlooking them all and has been slightly hidden by the burly frame of a man. “He’s probably still in shock, poor dear.”

The man (and Deacon is pretty certain he is a man, though it took him a moment to come to that conclusion because his features are so delicate) straightens and heads down the stairs to the left side of the platform. He’s short, coming only to Deacon’s shoulder, and shares some of the same features as the man he's standing behind, with a mass of curly dark hair that’s been pinned up into a mohawk of sorts, giving him a few extra inches. His slender frame is clothed in a black leather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans; nothing spectacular, but he easily commands the room’s attention. 

The man slowly circles Deacon, tutting when he sees the state of Deacon’s shirt. “Bones, must you destroy every piece of clothing that wanders into your clinic? Honestly.”

The doctor rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother with an answer. 

The man circles back around to the front of Deacon. “Well, sugar cake, I’m Savage Zac -I know, try to hold in your surprise until you’re out of earshot- and I run this place, in case you didn’t know that before you hopped into that arena. Why don’t you tell everyone here what your name is? Nice and loud now.”

“Dane,” Deacon says, voice a crisp bark below a shout. 

“A good, strong name, for a strong face,” Savage Zac says with a smirk and holds out his hand out to the side. Johnny places a black handkerchief in it. “This here is Johnny Maim-” he says tilting his head toward Johnny, “-he’s my second. You already know the miserable Sawbones, our medic-” there’s a snort from the doctor, “-the lovely lady next to Johnny is Ash ‘n Smoke, our head mechanic and armourer-” the group’s only woman gives Deacon a sharp nod; her blonde hair is cut about as severely as his, “-the bearded lumberjack over there is Bloody Garrett, our weapons specialist-” the lumberjack raised his hand, “-lastly, the hulking monster behind me is my brother, Charlie. You can just call him Brother Charlie. He’s a little touched in the head. Radiation. Poor dear. But don’t let that fool you, he’ll still crush anyone who tries to hurt me.” Savage Zac grins; the last bit sounds like a threat. Or a warning. “Now, let’s get this on you and get the party started.”

He ties the handkerchief on Deacon’s arm, wrapping the fabric around twice and making sure the stylized claw is clearly visible. He plays with the knot for a moment trying to get it to lay right. After he’s satisfied, Zac jumps onto the nearest table and declares the party begun. There’s a cheer from the assembled Claws and like a pack of ravenous dogs they attack the food table with gusto.

Savage Zac laughs at their enthusiasm and the armband suddenly feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. 

\- - - - -

Deacon lives the next few weeks in hazing hell. 

Dead animals keep appearing in his bed and locker, much to the juvenile joy of his three other bunk makes: B.O., Weird Eyeball, and Shirtless ‘n Hairy (they have real names, but Deacon doesn’t care to learn and he needs all the entertainment he can get right now). His things don’t go missing, but he’s found tar on his jeans, his baseball bat tied to the old power lines that run overhead (might have been his boots if he hadn’t taken to stashing a ‘live’ frag mine in them. ‘Live’ here meaning, Deacon took its guts out, but kept the little light.), and Hairy is wearing his shirts -the only shirts the bastard will wear. Thankfully, he left his nice ones at Ticonderoga.

Georgie doesn’t participate and often helps him avoid the more ruthless of the pranks. She apparently had it really bad the first month she was with the gang and doesn’t much care to visit that pain on others. Doubly so with Deacon, since he, in her own words: ‘doesn’t leer, hit on, touch, or proposition.’ If he’d been someone else, he suspects she wouldn’t be quite so helpful, and he’s glad that he followed Yang’s advice and became her bunk mate. 

Aside from the hazing he’s getting at the bunk house, Deacon is also subjugated to being a general ‘gofer’ for everything and anything around camp. It’s annoying one respect, he’s already paid his dues with The Railroad and now to have to do it all over again for, what boils down to _The Railroad,_ and it's ticking him off. However, on the other hand, Deacon is getting an excellent feel for the gang, its members, and suspects he’ll soon have an excuse to head into University Point. From there it should be relatively simple to slip away long enough to find and chat with Glory. 

Nobody cares what the gopher is up to, anyway, and Deacon likes it when he’s invisible. 

Some of the more interesting things he’s learned so far are:

Savage Zac has a set of power armour that is meticulously maintained by Ash ‘n Smoke. It's kept under lock and key in the half-bombed-out husk of a building just behind where Savage Zac calls home (the nicest house in town, just across from the church). Deacon will have to find some way of sabotaging it.

Johnny Maim is the resident deathclaw wrangler and is the only one allowed to handle Mammy. He’ll have been the first one Deacon takes out because, between the deathclaw and the power armour, the gang is already better equipped than The Minutemen and The Railroad combined. Johnny also runs a fight club in the parking lot between Savage Zac’s house and the bunk house. Deacon plans on joining once the hazing bullshit has quieted down. He’s not sure what kind of hand-to-hand fighter he is since he usually relies on surprise and stealth in close quarters, but he doesn’t have to be the champion, just a decent fighter to become better accepted among the group.

Also, Johnny and Ash are an item. Apparently, the strongest couple since the Addamses themselves (though he doesn’t really like comparing the two since Morticia and Gomez were really nice people despite liking the strangest things, whereas Johnny and Ash are monsters in every sense of the word). A couple is only as strong as it’s the weakest link; however, and he knows, from the gossip that Georgie is wired into, that Bloody Garrett has a thing for Ash. A few words, a little suspicion, and a jealous boyfriend are all he needs to destabilize that union. Hell, that’ll cause tensions between three of the five major players.

Brother Charlie is more of a problem. From what Deacon can tell, he never leaves Savage Zac’s side. He doesn’t plan on being the one to take care of Zac, but no one will be able to get close of Zac while Charlie still draws breath, which means the skinny, little fuck could just disappear into the ether and reform the Deathclaws, or something else just as dangerous, around the idea of the ‘injustice’ perpetrated on him by The Minutemen. 

(Because it will be The Minutemen. Railroad heavies will be called in to help once the time is right, but the main bulk of the forces will be Minutemen. He hopes Glory is exercising some discretion while in talks with the Minutemen stationed at University Point, but discretion isn’t exactly her strong suit.)

The only one Deacon can’t get a read on is Sawbones. He doesn’t know what the man likes or dislikes (aside from everyone), and he can’t find a weakness to exploit. Bones doesn’t talk with anyone regularly aside from Savage Zac and generally doesn’t seem to gel with the rest of the gang. He doesn’t know what the doctor gets from hanging around with The Deathclaws because he seems to find everything about the gang distasteful. Three weeks he’s been here, and Deacon hasn’t been able to figure out anything about him.

He’s a little frustrated, but he knows that eventually, he’ll find something. It’ll just take longer than the others.

Throughout all this, Georgie has been a huge help. Aside from Ash and Georgie, the only other woman in the gang is a higher-level member, along the lines of Yin and Yang, named Emogene. A strange woman who seems to float through life as if it was all amusing diversion and like the doctor doesn't appear to have a reason for being in the gang.

As far as he can tell, there isn’t anything Emogene cares for above herself.

However, she has a fondness for Georgie because she’s the only other woman in the gang (Ash doesn’t fit her definition of a woman, apparently) and has taken her under her wing. Emogene has an appetite for men that makes Deacon’s vault values upbringing cringe in utter horror (he does his best to tamp it down with a firm ‘none of my business’ attitude); however, because of this, Emogene always has the latest gossip which she then shares with Georgie, who in turn shares it with Deacon.

Deacon suspects Emogene only does so because she likes to hear herself talk, but hey, whatever gets him the information he needs.

It’s a week into October before he makes it into University Point (and four weeks since he joined The U.P. Deathclaws) on a supply run.

His hazing has seemingly come to an end and as such he is now trusted beyond the walls of Jamaica Plains. Deacon has to go with Hairy and one other higher-level member that he isn’t even going to pretend he knows the name of / has made up a name for. Deacon trails slightly behind the other two, half-listening to their conversation, in case they expect some sort of comment or agreement from him, but he's too exhausted to spare them much more thought than that. 

He had a nasty nightmare about Vault 112 last night and has been up since 2 a.m. 

So far, his mission with The Deathclaws is going about as bad as he suspected it would. He’s been mostly accepted (though that has been hampered by his 'initiate' label, though that should be clearing up in the coming weeks). He’s gathering intel like he should be, but he’s not sleeping well most nights and not eating like he should. Deacon’s finally had to tighten his belt up another notch -he’s been living in denial about it for a week now.

There’s not much he can do about the nightmares -they’re stress induced and he’s not going to be in a stress-free environment for a long while, but he can and should be eating better because he really doesn’t have any excess weight to lose. Deacon’s never been heavily muscled, in fact, in the vault, one could have called him ‘soft’, but since living in the Wastes, Deacon has found a happy medium between the two. A happy medium he is currently losing to a lack of nutrition. 

Thing is, nothing appeals to him and he’s never really hungry anymore. However, he’s hoping that by joining the fight club Johnny runs, it will force his appetite back into full swing to support the energy he will be expending. Either that or it will compound the problem. 

It’s a half hour hike to University Point, and when they reach the gates of the town, Deacon feels like all eyes fall on them. He straightens himself and plants a firm, menacing scowl on his face and starting scanning the town for Glory’s distinctive locks. Hairy and the other Claw give him the list of things that they need and tell him which trader to talk with about having a caravan bring the needed supplies by before they fuck off to the bar. 

Good. Let them drink and not wonder about what Deacon gets up to while they’re gone.

He finds the trader in a large wooden shack in the center of town. The man gives him a once over, noting the band on his arm, and says to him: ‘New guy, huh?’ to which Deacon affirms. The trader checks over the list, makes one for himself, and puts a few notes on the original about dates when certain things will be available. When he gives the list back to Deacon, he tells him to personally give it to Johnny Maim. 

“Don’t let those other drunk assholes get a hold of it. That’s where they are, right? The bar?”

“Yep,” Deacon replies.

The trader nods and rolls his eyes. “Trust me, if they take it, they’ll lose it, pin it on you, and then you have to face the big guy’s wrath.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“No problem. After what you survived to get in, no need to die over a fuckin’ piece of paper, right?”

Right.

Deacon pockets the list and continues his search for Glory. He meanders through the small town, observing the things that have changed since he was last in it; both in structure and attitude. He gets looks of approval from some and hate from others when people catch sight of the band on his bomber jacket. Deacon’s almost made a full circuit of the town, without managing to spot Glory, when a pair of Minutemen, a man and a woman, exit the bar. The man checks the area around them and Deacon darts into a doorway to his armband. 

Satisfied that whoever he’s looking for isn’t around, the Minuteman and his partner head down the main drag of town, toward the old university building. Sedgwick Hall is what the brass nameplate next to the door says, but The Railroad calls it Kilo. Deacon follows them because he’s pretty sure he’s seen them before.

He’s only halfway across town when the Minutemen head into Sedgwick Hall because he’s trying to make his progression there seem more like an accident, rather than a deliberate cause. When he reaches the building’s door, Deacon lets his fingers brush the railsign on the brick wall (after the shit he’s been through so far with The Deathclaws, he’s feeling a little more charitable towards The Railroad) and slips inside. He figures if no one saw him, good, but if someone had, he can say he was following the Minutemen to see what they were up to.

The building is quite dark compared to the late-morning, October sun and Deacon slides his glasses up to better find his way. There’s a vendor in this building (HARDWARE according to the sign that hangs above him) that wasn’t in here the last time Deacon was in University Point. It's a good cover for the number of people that wander in and out of here, but he doesn't see anyone manning the shop at the moment.

Deacon listens to the quiet of the room, noting that fishy smell of mirelurks has become almost unnoticeable. A pleasant change. It takes a moment for his ears to adjust of the quiet of the building, but after a moment he can hear the faint sounds of voices coming from somewhere upstairs. 

It’s been a while since he was last in this building, but Deacon’s pretty sure he remembers his way around. He heads over to the stairs on the left, climbing up and under another set of metal stairs that reach to the second floor. There's a room with a set of double doors ahead, and inside he can hear the softly singing voice of a young woman. He slows his pace, making his footsteps as quiet as possible as he round the corner of the stairs and begins climbing the second set.

From there he passes left along the balcony of the second floor. He reaches the other side of the room and heads down toward a metal door that’s been set in one of those wood and metal patch jobs. It hasn’t been latched properly; there’s about an inch of space and Deacon can hear the voices slipping through. He slides through the opening, closing the door firmly, but quietly behind him.

This part of Sedgwick Hall is a collapsed mess. Holes in the floor and roof, and the soggy smell of stagnant water. The rear end of the building has partially sunk into the bay, but for now, seems to be stable. A metal gangplank has been placed across the largest hole and Deacon crosses across it to the right and he heads right again.

He comes face to face with a set of mismatched double doors; Deacon recognizes this space. He knows the heart of Kilo is just beyond. He’s managed to keep his presence unknown for this long, but if he steps through that door he might get shot for the scrap of cloth on his arm. He fumbles with the knot on the handkerchief for a moment, but gets it loose and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. Then, he shoves the doors open.

He can hear their voices clearly now, but they’re on the level below, they’re discussing the two Claws that are currently holding up the bar. The balcony that sits above this room doesn’t have much in the way of railing anymore, but he finds a fairly sturdy section and leans against it.

There’s a group of four people in the room: the two Minutemen he followed, the leader of Kilo (whose name escapes him; it’s George or Gerald or something), and Glory. 

The railing creaks as his full weight settles against it. 

Deacon raises his hands even before the Minutemen have their laser muskets turned on him. The two Railroad agents narrow their eyes at him, Glory even goes to far as to cross her arms. 

“Been sightseeing lately, Glory?” Deacon asks, “Or maybe you can tell me who the President of the United States is? Ya did last time I changed my face.”

Immediately her whole continence changes; her arms drop and she steps forward.

Fuck, Deacon,” she says, “you look like shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quincy isn't exactly like the way it was described based on the terminals, but I figure with the Gunners hanging around down there, that the Minutemen would have taken up residence in town long _before_ the massacre happened.
> 
> Scarlett O'Hara said in _'Gone with the Wind'_ : 'As God is my witness, I shall never go hungry again!'
> 
> Ugh. This wasn't supposed to take this long. I try to stick to a weekly update, but damn there was real life in there that just wouldn't be avoided. It was fun though. :D


	11. Trojan Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _LADY MACBETH: These deeds must not be thought_   
>  _after these ways; so it will make us mad._
> 
> _MACBETH: Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!_  
>  _Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,_  
>  _sleep that knits up the revell’d sleeve of care,_  
>  _the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,_  
>  _balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,_  
>  _chief nourisher in life’s feast, --_
> 
> _-Macbeth (2.2.44)_

It takes Deacon about a half-hour to convey his report on The Deathclaws. 

Kilo’s leader, Gerald (Glory mentioned his name and Deacon’s going to try and remember it this time), leaves about half-way through to check on his store and daughter -that must have been the young woman’s voice he heard singing earlier. The two Minutemen have a slew of questions about numbers, armament, defences, and areas of weakness. Deacon describes what he can, but he’ll have to spend some time checking up on the specific things they want to know and get back to them later.

He knows now, that he’s met these Minutemen before. If anything, the Captain’s heavy coat gives him away, but Deacon’s recognizes the measured tones of his voice first. And the snarky ones of his female companion. Captain Garvey and Lieutenant Davis of Gunner ambush fame. 

Garvey keeps looking at him like he knows Deacon, or knows his name. There’s a peculiarity to the way he’s watching Deacon talk and move. If he puts their previous acquaintance together, Deacon will be suitably impressed, but until then, he’s not going to spoil the surprise. 

When he’s done with his report, the Minutemen leave. Before they do, though, Garvey tells Deacon that now they know who and what to look for, they’ll set up an observation point on top of the remains of the old overpass outside Jamaica Plains. He teaches Deacon a hand signal to give if things ever go bad and he needs a quick extraction. Deacon thanks the Captain and mimics the signal until Garvey is certain Deacon has it down. 

However, Deacon’s pretty good at flying under the radar. Barring any truly objectionable things, Deacon’s not going to go ‘Lone Wanderer’ on anyone. He knows the stakes of this mission.

When they’ve gone, and it's just him and Glory left, she hops on the room’s counter beside him and sits close enough that their arms and legs touch.

“I wasn’t kiddin’ ya know. You really do look like shit,” she says.

“And that’s exactly what a guy wants to hear after he’s had the month I've had. You know just how to make me feel at home.”

“Hey, one of us has got to tell the truth.”

Deacon smirks. “And we both know that won’t be me.”

“Exactly.” Glory bumps her leg with his. “I’m sorry this has to be you, ya know? I’m sure Carrington made his displeasure known in that passive-aggressive way of his, but he wasn’t the only one who thought you shouldn’t have to do this.”

Deacon leans into her slightly. “I agreed to do this. Nobody to blame but myself; doesn’t mean I won’t milk it later, though.”

"You should blame me.”

“What? Why?”

“I brought you into The Switchboard, I recommended you to Sly Nicolas.” She sighs. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be at Ticon. You wouldn’t have had to do that run with the Courser and been blamed for being a mole, you wouldn’t have had to go to Diamond City… you wouldn’t be here.”

Deacon snorts. “I doubt that. Somehow trouble always finds me. Don’t blame yourself; this situation is so not your fault. If you want to blame someone, blame The Deathclaws.”

“Oh, I do; the synth-hating fucks that they are, but I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“What? You think I like lookin’ in the mirror and seein’ this face? Or this armband?” Deacon pulls the handkerchief from his pocket. “Life is full of shit we don’t like but have to do. It won’t be forever, and if I have anything to say about it, it won’t be long, either.”

Glory takes the armband from his hand and turns it over in hers. “I’m boss around these parts; Gerald is deferring to my expertise on killin’ assholes here, and believe me, I’ll make sure this is the shortest fuckin’ op we ever run. The moment you’ve got them reeling, I’m telling Garvey to send his people in. I am not fucking around with these assholes.” She shakes the handkerchief.

Deacon grins. “Good. And while you’re at it, boss-” she chuckles. “maybe you could see about finding a Fat-Man launcher and a couple mini-nukes? There’s this arena that I would _love_ to see go up in nuclear fire.”

“After your descriptions of it, Dee, I wanna be there to watch. I’ll talk with Garvey, maybe the Minutemen can raid a Gunner stockpile or something.”

“Just don’t ask him to personally fight the Gunners,” Deacon says with a huff of laughter. “‘Cause I don’t have time to help him kill those guys this time.”

She raises an eyebrow. “This time? Helped him before, have you?”

“With this face? No, but when I was Rhett in Diamond City, I did.”

Glory makes a noise of understanding. “He kept lookin’ at you all...weird.”

“No idea what that’s about, he shouldn’t recognize me.”

“Maybe it’s something else then.”

“Probably because, as you so eloquently put it, I look like shit.”

She starts laughing. “Or maybe he’s got the hots for you.”

“With this face? Ha! I doubt it.”

“Good, ‘cause I was sorta hopin’ to talk him into somethin’ hot with me.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “The Captain doesn’t strike me as the 'one-night-stand type'.”

Glory smirks. “I wasn’t thinkin’ just one night. Oh no, _every night_ is what I was thinkin’.”

“50 caps says you can’t.”

“Oh, you’re on!”

When Deacon exits back into University Point, he feels better for having talked with Glory. This mission isn’t going to be pleasant, hell, it already hasn’t been fun in the slightest, but he is looking forward to the 50 caps he’s going to get from Glory (well, not so much the caps as the pleasure of saying: ‘I told you so’) and the prospect of blowing the Deathclaws' encampment to Kingdom Come.

Deacon prides himself on being able to judge the character and motivations of others, and every once and a while it’s nice to put those skills to the test beyond his own personal challenges. And Captain Garvey? He’s definitely not the kind to have steamy, hot sex without a little something more going on in the background. As nice as Glory is to look at, he’s going to need more than just that.

Deacon considers going into the bar to tell the two Claws he came into town with that the list has been looked at and that the supplies are on their way to the encampment, but fuck those guys. Though it worked to Deacon’s advantage, they foisted their work off on him and he’s not feeling particularly charitable. Especially not toward Hairy, so he meanders back to Jamaica Plains on his own. 

He finds Johnny Maim down at the parking lot turned fighting arena. Johnny’s walking around the lot and observing the pairs of fighters. He doesn’t seem to be all that concerned with their form, but more with the creativity in putting another man down. The meaner, the better. Deacon leans on the cinderblock wall of the parking lot and watches the fighters. Since he plans on joining, he better get a good feel for the level they are allowed to sink to. He can’t be caught off guard. 

Deacon’s not the only one watching the proceedings, several Claws members are leaning or sitting on the wall, but it’s Deacon that Johnny heads over to.

“Got my list?” he asks. 

Deacon fishes it out of his jeans and hands it over.

Johnny gives it a quick glance, nodding at a couple entries, then, he looks behind Deacon. “Where’s your buddies?”

“Bar,” Deacon replies with a shrug.

“What, don’t want to get shitfaced with those pricks?” he asks with a smirk.

Deacon just raises an eyebrow and Johnny laughs.

“Yeah, they put you through hell, didn’t they? Well, you lookin’ for some revenge? ‘Cause Warren usually fights a couple nights a week. I could make sure one of those nights it was you.”

It takes a moment for Deacon to piece together who Johnny Maim is talking about. Then: “Warren? That’s that hairy motherfucker?”

Johnny grins. “Yeah. Him.”

“I’m not much of a hand-to-hand fighter,” Deacon says with a shrug.

“Coulda fuckin’ fooled me. You handled that knife pretty damn well in the arena.”

“Knives are different than knuckles.”

Johnny nods. “True enough, but you’re tall and quick. You spend a week here, beatin’ on these guys, learnin’ from the bruises and pain, and I bet you could take him.”

“You’d let me in? Just like that?”

Johnny shrugs. “You put on a good show last time, don’t see why you won’t now. That’s the only rule I got: Don’t be fuckin’ dull.”

Deacon grins. “Well, lucky you; no one has ever accused me of that.”

And that’s how Deacon ends up getting the shit beat out of him every afternoon for a week. Okay, so maybe not the 'shit beat out of'; he’s a quick learner, and after that first afternoon, he learned pretty damn fast, but he’s constantly sore and achy and covered in bruises. His _bruises_ have bruises. Johnny won’t let anyone go so far as to kill another member, but there's a long way between beaten and dead, and Deacon’s pretty sure he’s travelled most of that road now.

This is what happens when you grow up in a vault where the scariest thing was a group of three guys who pushed others around with nasty words and a few messy punches: it leaves you pretty unprepared for the unhanded, below-the-belt bullshit that Wasteland assholes consider ‘entertaining’.

At least he doesn’t look like he doesn’t sleep anymore. Now he just looks like he has perpetual black eyes. Since he does. 

Though, one good thing to come from this is that Deacon has learned several recipes for healing pastes and tonics from Georgie. Her mother was a tribal from the Mid-West and taught her a lot of their herbal remedies. They aren’t as effective as a stimpak (that takes a little more chemical processing), but hubflowers, glowing fungus, and bloodleaf mashed into a paste are great for taking the swelling out of an injury and helping the body’s natural healing process. Plus, it saves him from wasting stimpaks on annoying, but not life-threatening injuries. Win-win.

“What did your dad do?” Deacon asks one night when they’re alone in their shared room and she’s wrapping his torn and bruised knuckles. She's been careful not to mention her father, only her mother during their discussion on tribal remedies, and he's curious as to why.

Her hands falter slightly, but she continues after only a moment's hesitation. “He was a trader. Had a caravan that went all over the Mid-West. Alternating years we’d go to Shady Sands or the Capital Wasteland. There’s that old song, ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’; it pretty much describes my childhood.”

Deacon could already feel the paste doing its job. The ache in his one hand was quickly diminishing. Come tomorrow, his hands would be mostly healed and ready to be split open all over again. Deacon’s had to put his knife throwing and bullet reloading practice on hold until he gets a better grip on this fighting thing.

“How’d you end up here?”

“Mom got sick,” Georgie replies, slathering paste on his other hand, voice monotone. “We heard about the amazing tech up here in the Commonwealth and thought maybe we find something or someone to help her where the tribal medicine failed.

“One night we were camped in this old park north of the ruins. We were about a half a days walk from Boston proper and dad just… _disappeared._ We had no idea what happened. We woke in the morning and he was gone. Mom and me, we feared raiders, ya know? Thought maybe they would demand a ransom for his safe return. A wealthy trader can fetch a pretty good price.”

“But it wasn’t raiders, was it?” Deacon asks, already knowing the answer.

She shakes her head. “We stayed put a coupla days, thinking maybe the raiders might demand something, but when we had no word we…we thought he was dead. Ultimately, we were right.

“We pressed on to Boston, but mom was so weak by then, that without Dad to help, it was hard for us. She couldn’t carry any gear, so I had to manage it all and wrangle Lilly, our brahmin. Took us a longer than a half a day to reach Boston, and Diamond City, but when we did, I set mom up in a room there and we talked with the town’s doctor.”

“Sun,” Deacon says when she’s been quiet for too long. 

“...Yeah. He did what he could for her, but he said that he couldn’t make her well again. Just ease her suffering.” She grabs a strip of cloth and starts binding his hand. “I didn’t want to except that, not after losing my dad already, so I started asking around. Talking to people. Looking for any information on a building or a group or a person that might be able to help. That’s when I learned about The Institute.

“We were almost out of caps, I was out of hope, and mom was on her deathbed when dad showed up in Diamond City. I thought it was a miracle. I never questioned it. I thought he was dead, _we_ thought he was dead, and then there he was. Looking a little shaken, and worse for wear, but alive.

“He told us a story about getting taken by raiders and managing to slip free when there was some sort of inter-gang fight. He went back to the campsite but we were long gone. He headed for Diamond City, hoping that if we weren’t still there, he might find out where we had gone. 

“Mom was so happy to see him and for a couple days she got stronger again, but it didn’t last long. I think she held on long enough, hoping to see him again and when she did, she was able to go. We buried her outside the ruins and went back to trading, but it was never quite…right. I thought it was because mom was gone, but…”

“It was him.”

Gerogie ties a knot on the wrappings and sits back, the springs in Deacon’s bunk creaking.

“My dad and I were never particularly close. That sounds strange, I know, since all we did was travel around together, but he…I don’t know. Lacked the ability to express himself, I guess. I never really knew much about his life before he met my mom, but she used to say that he didn’t have the best of childhoods. I knew he loved me, but I think during my whole childhood he only ever said it a couple of times and he rarely hugged me, or kissed me goodnight, or did any of the things that kids need, but don’t know how to ask for.

“When we started out again, just the two of us, it was like I suddenly had the dad I always wished for as a kid. He was open with his affection, hugged me, told me he loved me, wanted to see me safe. He laughed and joked and even though that was such a hard time after my mom was gone, we weren’t too people on opposite ends with a desert of grief between us. He made the effort to be there for me and…and…I loved him for it.

“I loved that _fucking_ synth more that I ever loved my real father. He made me love him more than my own flesh and blood.”

Georgie’s crying now and it’s the first time Deacon’s ever seen this level of emotion out of her. Up until this point, she’s been pretty buttoned down; not quiet exactly, but washed out. Like a sun-bleached shirt.

“What kind of monster does that? What kind of _people_ make things that do that? I hate him, Dane. I hate him so much, and yet, I still love him. I wish he was still here; I don’t honestly know if I’d kill him or hug him, but I wish he was still here.”

Deacon takes her hands in his own. “What happened to him?”

She pulls one hand free to scrub the tears from her face but tucks it back in his when she’s done. “We made a yearly trek back to the Commonwealth to visit mom. He stopped going west to Shady Sands, preferring the states around the Capital and the ‘Wealth. As we were making the trip back, we were jumped by this gang of raiders. They all had L and L painted crudely over their jackets.

“I don’t know how they knew, maybe they just guessed, but they gutted my dad -that _synth_ , right in front of me. They pulled out bits of his mechanical insides and there was so much blood. _So much blood._ I kept screaming for them to stop, but two of ‘em just held me and made me watch. 

“When they were done they let me go and picked through the remains of our caravan. None of them bothered me, except with jeers about how I had been duped by a synth." Her words are coming in fits and starts now. "As he was dying, with his guts and wires were strewn everywhere, he said he was sorry. He was sorry that he wasn’t who I thought he was, but he loved me. He loved me the way my real dad did because he had memories from him…and he was sorry. He was just sorry.”

She’s too choked to continue and Deacon doesn't want to hear any more -if he ever comes across raiders with an L & L symbol on their jackets, he'll kill them. Deacon imagines that the anger she has is what drove her to join a group that wants to eradicate synths in any form. He can’t blame her for it, but he wishes he could tell her that it wasn’t the synth’s fault, that her anger should be directed at the bastards who took her real dad in the first place.

He's not sure what, or if he should say anything right now. People talk to him because he’s a sympathetic ear, but it doesn’t mean he has any better handle on how to help them deal with what they might reveal. Hell, he can't even handle his own issues. Deacon just strokes his thumbs back and forth over the ridges of her knuckles until she stops crying. 

When she does, Georgie pulls her hands free and scrubs her face down with the tattered collar of her shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to get all weepy on you. Or tell you about the worse day of my life. _God,_ what is wrong with me…”

“Hey, it’s not you. It’s me. I think there’s like this flashing light over my head that says: ‘Talk to him, he listens’.” Deacon shrugs. “You’re not the first Georgie; you won’t be the last.”

“Well, it’s not a flashing light, but there is certainly something about you.” She gives him an appraising look and seems to decide something. “There’s few of us that hang out around here most nights. Now that they’ve stopped hazing you, you should join us.”

“I’ve got some fights this week. Johnny’s got high hopes for me, and if I deliver…” Deacon shrugs. “Probably won’t have time for much else.”

“You come by after, okay? Someone needs to patch you up, even if I don’t get why you’re doing this.”

“Isn’t the opportunity to beat on Hairy, enough?”

She snorts. Georgie finds his nicknames amusing. “Won’t be just him, though, will it? Look, if you need to prove your manliness in the gang by doing this, I’m not going to try and stop you. I’ll totally judge you, but I won’t stop you.”

“Hey, my manliness is completely secure, I just want to get the hell out of this bunk house. I figure, impress the big cheese and move on up.”

“Well, when you get there, don’t forget who bandaged all your wounds.”

“Never.”

The next night he’s scheduled to fight Warren, a.k.a. Hairy and Johnny won’t let him participate in any of the one-on-one fights that afternoon. He likes the fighters fresh for a bout and Deacon is relegated to training on a few punching bags that have been scrounged from some old gym. He keeps his hands bandaged to allow them to fully heal before he has to cut them open again tonight.

Georgie promises to watch from the sidelines. She doesn’t normally go to the fights, but if Deacon is going to knock Hairy’s block off, she’s totally okay with watching that. He hopes that’s how it will go, but Hairy’s got a lot more experience with this kind of thing than Deacon, so it could be him who gets his block knocked off. 

The fights are the way disputes are settled within the gang (if someone doesn’t fight or can’t, then they choose someone to fight on their behalf), so Deacon wanting to knock Hairy down a few pegs for the shit he helped orchestrate in regards to Deacon’s hazing, is okay with everyone. Hell, it’s encouraged. Though, he doubts they need much of an excuse to organize a fight. 

The fight takes place after supper. 

Deacon sees Hairy eat a hearty supper and thinks that will be to his advantage. Deacon, himself, only manages to eat a few strips of brahmin jerky and some purified water, and even that is threatening to come back on him in his nervousness. Because he is _very_ tense right now, oh yes. His leg is jiggling and his hands are tapping erratically on the table and Georgie keeps offering him a cigarette to calm his nerves, but Deacon keeps declining. He hasn’t specifically said he doesn’t smoke (like he needs another reason for these assholes to ostracize him), but he smells like stale smoke often enough through osmosis that most seem to think he smokes off in private. 

It’s a cool October night and when Deacon gets to the parking lot, he pulls off his bomber jacket, knowing he'll work up a good sweat. Besides, the fewer clothes he has to wash blood out of, the better. He starts warming up and whistling to himself to help him keep time and encourage him to keep moving.

One of the fighters, a man with a large Corvega chevron tattooed on his forearm and a full beard, has a particular hate on for Hairy, and has been helping Deacon develop his fighting skills. He taught Deacon a lot of things, but two in particular: to keep in constant motion because a moving target is harder to hit, and that one of the most neglected things in a fight is one’s own voice. Corvega guy (maybe Leo?) wants Deacon to yell and shout, but that’s not who he is. Rather than ignore the advice, he just adapted it. 

Shouting seems weird to Deacon, but he can sing a song. He’s got a lot of those rattling around inside his head.

Corvega joins Deacon at the far end of the parking lot. “Remember to punch straight," he says, "middle knuckle, and don’t go for his head with your fists.”

Deacon nods. “Don’t want a broken hand.”

“Go soft spots: lower ribs, solar plexus-”

“Groin, neck, kidneys, knees," Deacon finishes. 

“Right,” Covega claps Deacon on the shoulder. “I know there’s a lot more to keep in mind, but just remember to keep advancing. Don’t backup and give him room for a full swing. Warren is heavier than you, he could do some serious damage if you let him.”

“I won’t.”

Corvega nods. “Sing loud, Dane. If you’re not gonna yell; sing loud.”

Deacon grins, “Will do.”

“Good luck,” Corvega says and moves off to the side.

The crowd is starting to gather now. Johnny Maim expects there to be a lot of spectators tonight. Deacon gave them a good show last time and they want to see if he can do it again. Georgie arrives and finds herself a good spot on the railing in Deacon’s corner. She gives him a two thumbs up and he nods back. 

People start lining the walls inside the parking lot; Johnny only allows people to gather there one person deep. The rest start sitting on the railing like Georgie or standing on the old cars that have been pushed against the railing on the outside of the parking lot. Hairy hasn’t yet arrived, but Deacon can see that Savage Zac and Brother Charlie have taken their seats on the balcony of Zac’s house. They have the best seats. 

Deacon keeps whistling and moving, the words of the song bouncing through his head at a jaunty pace. He hasn’t actually sung the song out loud because he wants surprise to be on his side, but if anyone knows their pre-war music, they’ve already know the song from his whistling. 

He wishes he knew what he does now about fighting when he was a teen. He could have really laid Butch out and wouldn’t have to deal with his snarky attitude for so many years. Deacon could have kept Amata shielded from most of the Tunnel Snakes bullshit. 

Live and learn, right?

The place is packed full by the time Hairy arrives. People outside the parking lot are getting impatient and starting to rock the old cars they are standing on, making them go up and down like a great wave of human bodies. The din of people talking is a loud buzz that pretty much blocks out the sound of Deacon’s whistling, but he can hear the tune in his head. He’s been singing it for a week now, non-stop. He goes to sleep singing it; wakes up singing it. 

Good thing it’s a catchy song, or he’d be crazy by now.

Hairy steps into the parking lot, shoving by a few Claws that haven’t noticed his arrival. Deacon thinks he’s already got the advantage here because Hairy doesn’t consider him worth fighting and has shown up late. Deacon knows that he’s never really looked like someone dangerous, or someone to be feared; he has too constant a smile and jokes too often for anyone to really take him seriously.

Until he _needs_ to be taken seriously. 

Hairy does a few token swings to warm up, but nothing serious. Not the way that Deacon has been loosening up, trying to channel all that nervous energy into focused swings and power. Deacon is glad because it will work to his advantage, but he’s also a little pissed off that the cocky bastard thinks he can take Deacon down so easily. Well, Deacon will show him, won’t he?

From his balcony, Savage Zac shoots off a shotgun to quiet the crowd and all eyes turn to him.

“We all know the rules of this little past time of ours, don’t we? But how about a refresher since there are so many of you boys and girls hanging out here tonight?” Savage Zac says to the crowd in that light, lilting voice of his. “First off, no killing! How are we supposed to have fun, night after night, if we kill each other like common raiders? Hmm? Of course, you can come as close as killing your opponent as you’d like. After all, what's the point of having a doctor if we don’t use him?”

The crowd cheers and Deacon imagines, that somewhere off to the side, Bones is rolling his eyes in annoyance. 

“Now that we have that settled, what is the most important rule of a fight?”

“DON’T BE DULL!” The crowd roars in answer to Savage Zac’s question. 

“Good! And since that's about it for rules around here, Johnny, won’t you get this thing started?”

Johnny Maim steps forward from the crowd into the center of the parking lot. “Ladies and assholes, in this corner we have: Warren! One of our most entertaining fighters and probably our most underachieving member.” There’s ripple of laughter that moves through the crowd and Hairy flips off a few members. “In our other corner, we have: Dane! Our newest member looking to even the scales a bit. He’s thirsty for advancement and knows how to put on a show.”

There’s a cheer from the crowd, but under it, Deacon can hear a few ‘boo’'s as well. Georgie cheers loudly from her perch. 

“Okay, okay. We go until one gives in, or one almost kills the other. FIGHT!” 

Johnny steps back with that shout, and Hairy cracks his knuckles as he steps forward. He’s wearing a grin, no shirt, and is no doubt imaging how to make beating Deacon in a single blow entertaining. 

_Well,_ Deacon thinks, _fuck him._

Deacon brings his fists up, dropping his left leg back and twisting his body so he’s not so broad of a target. His bouncing movement stops for a moment as he resets his song in his head. Hairy starts out across the parking lot, gaining speed as he goes, but Deacon’s voice -bright, loud, and slightly off tune (he _is_ a better whistler than singer)- startles him into a stop.

“Ridin’ along in my automobile; my baby beside me at the wheel!” Deacon moves in time with the song’s beat. He can hear the guitar strumming in his head. He quickly closes the distance between the two of them. “I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile; my curiosity runnin’ wild!”

Hairy is still gaping at him as he moves in for a quick jab to the man's floating ribs -the eleventh and twelfth ribs, his anatomy knowledge chimes in- to punctuate ‘wild’; Deacon’s voice dropping slightly as twists the weight that was braced on his left foot forward into his punch. Hairy stumbles back a step with a groan and seems to remember that he’s supposed to be fighting Deacon, not staring at him while he sings. 

The crowd is quiet around them; they seem to be just as surprised as Hairy is concerning Deacon’s singing.

Hairy bring his hands up, getting moderately serious about it now that Deacon’s landed the first punch. He takes a swipe at Deacon’s head, but Deacon side-steps and the punch only lands a glancing blow on his arms. The crowd also seems to revive somewhat and there’s murmur that ripples through it. 

Deacon keeps singing: “Cruisin’ and playin’ the radio, with no particular place to go!”

Hairy moves forward, trying to back Deacon up, but Deacon slides in a circle to prevent being cornered. Hairy is quite heavy and bulky; muscle under a layer of fat. 

“Ridin’ along in my automobile; I was anxious to tell her way I feel!”

He’s not as quick as Deacon, but if Deacon gets caught by a well-placed punch, he'll go down and he may not get back up again until Johnny drags Hairy off of him. He doesn't need that embarrassment. Deacon can see Hairy shifting into a punch and scrunches up to protect his side. 

“So I told her softly and sincere, and she leaned and whispered in my ear.”

Hairy’s doesn’t hit the soft area of Deacon’s ribs, but rather his arm where he’d moved to protect himself. The blow is forceful, even with their close proximity, and Deacon reels. Hairy comes at Deacon with his other hand, a punch aimed at his face, and Deacon can’t move fast enough this time. Hairy lands a solid blow on Deacon’s right cheek. He can feel the bones cracking under the force of the strike, and hopes that at least, Hairy pays for it with an injured hand.

The pain is a distant thing, adrenaline is blocking most of it out, but Deacon’s head snaps around and he loses his balance. He stumbles backward, trying to find his footing. In the background, he can hear the crowd cheering. He finds his feet and looks up to see Hairy charging for him, meaning to put him on the ground and end this. Deacon jumps to the side as Hairy tries to tackle him and all he gets is an arm full of a couple crowd members. 

Deacon has to shout to be heard above the noise, but this is a perfect opportunity to embarrass Hairy: “Cuddlin’ more and drivin’ slow, with no particular place to go!”

There a ripple of laughter from the crowd as Deacon puts particular emphasis on the first couple of words, and Hairy turns, angry. Good; he'll fight stupid. 

“Come ‘ere you little shit; I’ll make you fuckin’ sing,” Hairy growls as he moves back into the middle of the parking lot, stalking Deacon.

“Thanks, but I’ve already got a song. Maybe you know it?” Deacon replies and lets Hairy get close, refusing to back away. 

Hairy has decided he’s done using his fists and tries to grab him; Deacon scuttles backward and out of reach. He dances around Hairy, the beat of the song guiding his footsteps. Hairy whirls trying to keep an eye on Deacon.

“No particular place to go, so we parked way out on the Kokomo!” Deacon punctuates ‘Kokomo’ with a timed strike to Hairy’s nose. About the only place on the face you actually want to hit with your hand. He made sure to twist into it, so Deacon’s knows the cartilage is good broken.

Hairy groans in pain as his head snaps back and blood gushes from his busted nose. His hand shoots up to hold it, but that seems to make it hurt even more and his hand drops again. Hairy glares at Deacon, blood all over his face and chest; he’s reassessing the level of threat that Deacon is.

“You’re not singin’, Warren,” Deacon says. “Do you not know how the next part goes?”

“Fuck. You.” Hairy growls. 

Deacon gives Hairy a grim grin as the man starts moving in again. Hairy’s fists have settled around his face now that he’s taking Deacon seriously. Suddenly, something hard hits the back of Deacon’s head. He stumbles forward and then down onto one knee as his vision blackens for a second. There’s the sound of glass breaking beside him and a hearty _‘BOO!’_ from the crowd. 

Hairy curls his fists into Deacon’s shirt and drags him upright again. His head still ringing as Hairy snaps the upper part of his forehead down on Deacon’s nose, smashing it. He yelps as the pain rouses him, and Deacon struggles to get free of Hairy’s grasp while tears sting his eyes. He’s never had his nose broken before and it hurts like a sonuvabitch. Way worse than the punch Hairy landed on Deacon’s cheek.

“Now we match,” Hairy says with a crooked grin.

“Oh, Warren, people will talk if you keep sayin’ such sweet nothings to me.” He grins at Hairy; blood staining his teeth and leaving a copper taste in his mouth.

Even in pain, Deacon manages to be a jester -he does so like to be the cleverest person in the room. However, he should really learn to keep his mouth shut in certain situations. 

Hairy lets one hand fall from Deacon’s shirt and punches him hard in his side. Deacon groans and tries to breathe through the pain. Hairy does it again for good measure and drops Deacon. His legs buckle under him and he collapses to his knees on the ground trying to breathe. 

Hairy is circling him now and Deacon curls into himself because he knows that a few kicks are bound to come his way. Then, a voice from the crowd rises above the cheers and jeers.

“The night was young and the moon was bold-” Hairy stops and Deacon looks up. Georgie is motioning from her perch for Deacon to get up as she sings the next line “-so we both decided to take a stroll!”

Deacon scrambles to his feet as he sings: “Can you imagine the way I felt?” He starts coughing, but Georgie is singing with him so he doesn’t have to sing quite so loud. He launches himself at Hairy, knocking him backward, but not off his feet. “I couldn’t unfasten her safety belt!”

Hairy grabs Deacon again, but this time, it's Deacon who head-butts Hairy on his already busted nose. Hairy howls in pain and releases Deacon, both hands coming up to cover his face. Deacon rams the heel of his boot into the side of Hairy’s knee, forcing him to the ground with a yowl. 

“Ridin’ along in my _calaboose_ ; still tryin’ to get her belt a‘loose.”

Deacon darts behind Hairy and shoves him in the middle of his back with one foot, forcing Hairy to drop his hands to the ground to prevent him from hitting it. Then, Deacon wraps his left arm around Hairy’s neck, careful to keep the crook of his elbow aligned with Hairy’s throat. 

“All the way home I held a grudge-” Deacon holds his right bicep with his left hand and squeezes his left arm. He’s trying to cut off the blood supply to Hairy’s brain and make him loose consciousness for a few seconds. “-for the safety belt that wouldn’t budge.”

Hairy bucks backward, but Deacon anticipated it and holds on. It doesn’t take long for Hairy to start going limp and Deacon’s watching for him to give in or tap out, but it doesn’t come. Hairy fights to the end. When he finally loses consciousness and collapses in a heap on the group, Deacon steps back and for a moment the crowd is silent, holding its breath.

Deacon’s voice carries well in the quiet, “Cruisin’ and playin’ the radio;-”

Then, the crowd comes back to itself and finishes the line for him: “WITH NO PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO!”

Johnny declares him the winner as the crowd cheers.

Afterward, Georgie drags him to her little campfire group. He’s already been to see Bones, who reset his nose (unkindly, he might add -he thinks the doctor gets a kick out of causing pain instead of healing it) and gave him a stim to repair his face and bruised ribs. 

Deacon will admit to running on a victory high, and while he reminds himself not to get cocky (since he only really beat Hairy due to him not expecting Deacon to be much of a fight), he can’t help but feel really great about winning. So if Georgie wants him to meet with the other misfits in The Deathclaws, he’ll do it with a grin. Very little could destroy the good mood he’s in. Plus, it might be a good idea to see if anyone in this organization is worth saving. Besides Georgie, that is, he’s already decided to try and sway her.

The have a bonfire raging in a sawed-off section of a huge, steel pipe in one of the collapsed buildings down the street from the main bunk house. The ceiling is long gone, but most of the walls are still standing and they give shelter from the cold wind that’s starting to declare that November isn’t far off. There’s a group of four people that stand to greet them as they arrive. 

Deacon recognizes Corvega right away, and then Emogene as well -her blonde hair is shimmering in the fire’s light. The other two he doesn’t recognize, but he’s surely seen them around camp. Corvega grins and slaps Deacon on the back, he’s already told Deacon that he put on a hell of a fight and congratulated him on kicking Hairy’s ass. Emogene greets him in that lofty way of hers, like an Upper-stander greeting a Lower-fielder. Despite this, she seems to offer genuine congratulations on his successful fight. 

The other two step forward and Georgie introduces them as Alan and Robin. There’s nothing spectacular about their builds, nor even their faces; average through and through. Though he thinks Alan might have had a broken nose at some point and Robin’s armband is tied on inside out -he’s not sure if that accidental or on purpose. Alan and Robin live outside the main bunkhouse, in the same house as Yin and Yang, which is probably why Deacon didn’t recognize them.

There is a collection of scavenged patio chairs, an old park bench, and what looks like a see-saw board propped on two concrete blocks, scattered around the fire. Deacon spies a tree stump being used as a foot stool and sits on the park bench to use it. The rest sit on the various surfaces around the fire and Georgie presses a beer into his hand that she raided from a beat up cooler next to where Corvega is sitting. She takes the other side of the park bench.

“So Dane,” Alan starts, “Georgie keeps tellin’ us that you’re our kinda guy.”

Deacon cracks the top on his beer, pocketing the bottlecap. “What kinda guy is that?”

“The kind that ain’t a complete asshole,” Corvega says with a laugh. 

“Really?” Deacon asks and starts patting down his coat pockets. “Shit. I think I’ve misplaced my ‘asshole’ patch; must be in my other coat. I’m really not that nice of a guy.”

“Well, I for one, don’t believe that,” Georgie replies. “I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “You’re a terrible judge of character, Georgie. So what are you guys then? A gang within a gang?”

“More like a subset,” Robin replies. “You haven’t been through The Gutting yet, so I don’t think you appreciate how rough Savage Zac likes to play. We don’t agree with that, so I guess we’re the nicer bit of the gang. Though, as you can see, we’re few.”

“The Gutting?” Deacon asks. “That’s an ominous name.”

“But appropriate, for a thing so horrible,” Emogene says.

Deacon’s interest is peaked, but he’s wary. “What is it?” 

There’s a collective shaking of heads. 

“We can’t tell you,” Georgie says.

“Savage Zac would have our balls,” Corvega adds. “Er…balls and lady bits.”

“Why?”

Alan leans forward in his chair. “If Zac found out we ‘spoiled’ the surprise. He’d throw us in the arena again. Only this time, we wouldn’t get out.”

Deacon frowns and wonders what surprise could be worse than the things he’s already suffered through to get to this point. “Alright, I won’t keep prying, but if you don’t agree with Zac, the what are you doin’ here?”

“It’s not that we don’t agree with him,” Robin replies. “It’s just that we don’t like how far he goes sometimes. He didn’t pick that name for himself, ya know. The gang gave it to him.”

“Don’t let his height and features fool you,” Emogene says, “He’s exactly the savage his name states he is.”

“So you agree with his message, but not his methods?” 

They all nod save for Emogene, who just smirks and leans back in her seat. 

“Well, I think you’re fightin’ the wrong foe,” Deacon continues and watches as they all pull back. Only Emogene seems interested in what he was to say beyond that. 

“Indeed?” she says, brow raised, smirk still playing on the edges of her mouth. “Explain, then, who we should be fighting.”

There’s a murmur of agreement from the rest of the Claws.

Deacon scrubs the side of his face. “I used to be a Gunner. Obviously not anymore, but I learned a few things about pickin’ the right battles. You wanna stop a group? You don’t waste your time and energy fightin' their soldiers. You go after the leaders.” He leans forward, bottle dangling from two fingers. “It’s not synths replacin’ people and killin’ ‘em; sure they’re the soldiers, but who calls the shots? Seems to me like the battle needs to be brought to The Institute; that’s the only way to stop the synths for good.”

“Nobody knows who The Institute is or where they are,” Corvega says.

“Then we need to start lookin’, wouldn’t ya say? They’ll never stop pumping out synths until we do something about it. And wastin’ our time on the synths that hurt us, hurt others, will ensure that real justice never comes to them.”

“So what? We should just ignore the crap a synth replacement has put us through?” Georgie asks, voice angry. “You know my story, Dane. You know what that asshole did to me-”

“And what did he do? Loved you? Treated you well? Gave you the things you always wanted from your dad? Those aren’t bad things; lotta people out here would love to have their father treat them like that.”

“He wasn’t _real_!” she snarls, turning on the bench to face him square on. “That thing pretended to be my dad!”

Deacon shifts to look at her. “You said he had your dad’s memories, right? If all we are as individuals are our collective experiences, memories, and perceptions, whose to say that he wasn’t your dad if he had all those things? I’m not sayin’ what they did was right, or acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe he was your dad in all the ways that mattered.”

“I-” Georgie starts then falls silent. He hasn’t said anything she hasn’t already thought before, but you lose perspective when you’re focused on hate when you’re in a group of people that only bring out the worse in you.

“Maybe it isn’t that synth you need to be hating,” Deacon says, turning back to the rest of the group. He has little doubt that they all have a similar tale. “but rather, the people who put them there.”

No one talks again for a long time and Deacon lets them have their silence. He hopes that they are considering his words, but he knows from experience that a change of heart isn’t something that someone else can foist on you. You have to come to it yourself.

Emogene starts the conversation up again after they’ve all had their share of silence. She talks about nothing in particular and later Deacon can’t recall what she actually spoke about, but it’s enough to lift the heavy mood that’s fallen on the group. Somehow, the conversation gets steered back to his fight and they end up singing his song again (badly and completely out of order), their comradery is restored.

When the fire has died down, and they are all smelling thoroughly of ash and smoke, they douse the rest of the embers and head back to get some sleep. The area outside their fire pit is very dark and they stumble and laugh as they pick their way back to the street. They let the fires of the main bunk house guide them as they meander back.

As they draw closer, Deacon notices something is off, but it takes him almost a half a block to see exactly what.

One of the fire barrels that lights the entrance to the bunk house has been moved to the side of the building placed so it lights a section of the brick wall. In the lighted area, a Claws member hangs by a rope around his neck that is attached somewhere on the roof of the building. There is hushed whispering from their group, but none of them seem to be particularly surprised. They stop just in front of the display and Deacon notes that there is a beat-up metal sign hanging from the man’s neck. It says CHEATER in large, harsh letters. 

Deacon looks at the others and gestures to the man on the wall. “What the hell is this?”

“That’s the man who threw the bottle at your head,” Corvega replies. “Savage Zac don’t like cheaters.”

“Or thieves,” Robin adds. “Someone probably gave him up after the fight.”

Alan shakes his head. “I thought we’d all learned our lesson by now. Must have been a newbie.”

Deacon looks at them in mild shock. Is this so commonplace a thing, that no one bats an eye when they come across something that should be more at home in a raider camp? Oh, wait, what is he thinking? They have a deathclaw arena where they slaughter initiates for their pleasure. Of course, they do this kind of raider bullshit. He needs to get out of this place. 

“It’s best not to contemplate it,” Emogene says and starts walking away. After a moment the other three follow her and it’s only him and Georgie left standing in front of the bunk house.

“He almost got you killed,” she says when Deacon turns back to the body with a scowl on his face. His disgust must be radiating off of him because her voice has a defensive tone to it. Like she is trying to justify Savage Zac’s reaction. 

“Then, I should have had the opportunity to beat some sense into him in the parking lot,” Deacon replies and walks away, wondering how she could justify it when she has _Silver Shroud_ comics tucked under her mattress and pillow.

\- - - - -

He's been fighting for a month when Yin grabs him out of the lunch line. 

Not that he's been eating much anyway. More than he had been that first month sure, but his fighting is burning more calories than he's taking in. Deacon's become quite lean and the heavy features of his face are more pronounced than ever. He's hesitant to say he’s skinny because he's got a whole host of new muscle definition, but his belt has been tightened another notch. 

If he gets any thinner, he'll have to start punching holes in his belt.

Yin doesn't say much (to Deacon's surprise), just leads him across the street to a house just north of the church. It's right next to an old playground, which is next to the church's graveyard. Deacon thinks that it’s an excellent premise for a horror movie. 

The real horror, however, it what happens in that house.

Yin opens the door for Deacon but doesn't follow him inside. His jovial continence has completely vanished and his dark skin is looking a shade or two paler. He leaves Deacon standing in inside the house’s threshold and the last thing he says before he walks away is, “Be thankful you didn't get lunch.” Then, he closes the door on Deacon.

There's a small entrance way in the house that has been made into a room of its own through the use of a shoddily erected wall. A door has been set in it and Deacon reaches for it with one hand scarred and battered hand. Just beyond the second doorway, is a dark room with only a single overhead light hung low over a table in the center of the room. Deacon nearly recoils at the stench of death and blood that permeates the space. It’s an old and sour taste that coats the back of his throat and reminds him of raider camps.

His eyes need a moment to adjust to the low light and as they do, more details emerge. He can see a ring of old blood on the floor around the table and flecks of it on the house’s walls. A smaller table sits to the right of the one under the light with instruments both medical and nightmarish on its surface. There are a few chairs scattered amidst the room, and a couple have coiled ropes on their seats. 

Just beyond the circle of light, is the house’s old kitchen. It’s been mostly destroyed through time and lack of use, but sitting on the corner counter, legs crossed and a cigarette held loosely in one hand, is Savage Zac. Deacon almost didn't see him, he blended into the background so well. Probably the point; the man likes to watch from a distance and gauge the reactions of others. Kind of like Deacon himself. 

Deacon glances about the room again, but he doesn’t see Brother Charlie and he wonders why Zac is here alone. 

“Hey sugar cake,” Savage Zac says. “Loved that last fight. You're so lean and light-” he makes a noise of appreciation, “-and you move so quick. Tell me, what was that last song, again?”

“Rave On.”

“Ah, yes. _‘Rave on, it’s a crazy feelin’ And I know it’s got me reelin’’_ ,” Zac hums a few more bars of the song. “I wonder if you might run out of songs to sing.”

“Hope not.”

“Me too, sugar cake, because you’re really something in that ring.”

“Thanks. Gotta be entertaining, right? That's Johnny's one rule.” 

Savage Zac give him a slow once over. “You are certainly that.”

Behind him, Deacon can hear the front door open again and the sounds of a commotion just on the other side of the second door. He slips off to the side as the second door bursts open and a pair of Claws bring in a struggling man. Deacon feels the pit of his stomach drop out as they try and toss him on the large table, but the man is strong and putting up one hell of a fight. 

“ _Dane,_ ” Savage Zac sing-songs from his perch. “Won't you give them a hand?”

Deacon springs forward like a puppet whose strings have been jerked on and grabs the man's legs. He feels like he suddenly has no control over his actions as they haul the man onto the table proper. His skin crawls and he feels bile rising in his throat as the man pleads with them to stop. Deacon jumps as a hand descends on his shoulder and he turns, expecting Braun's smirking face and cold eyes to be staring back at him as he instructs Deacon on the finer points of torture. 

It's Sawbones.

This close, Deacon notes that the man has dead eyes; they seem to absorb all the light thrown on his face, to the point that they look like gaping black pits. Bones doesn't say anything once he has Deacon's attention but points to the straps that have been bolted to the table's legs. Deacon responds to the silent command with the same jerky movements as before as he lashes the man down to the table's top. Above him, the two Claws that drug the man in are doing the same to his arms. 

Deacon steps back shakily; he still feels like Braun is watching just over his shoulder. God, he doesn't want to be in that place again. Bad enough reliving his time in Vault 112 in bits and pieces through nightmares, but to have to live through it again, courtesy of these psychos, is going to fuck Deacon up. There's just no nice way to say it. And as if it that wasn't enough, Braun's ghost is going to haunt him every step of the way. 

The slam of a door shakes Deacon back to the present. He looks back at the table; Sawbones standing off to the side, checking his instruments. Deacon scans past the thrashing man, refusing to spend too long looking at him, and up past to where Savage Zac is sitting. He's watching Deacon with great interest. 

“Normally, we do this with a few newbies,” Savage Zac says, “but you're the only one who's managed to survive for a few arena fights now. We've been sittin' on this synth for a week and, well, sugar cake, it seems like you get to do this alone.”

Deacon wants to ask _what_ he gets to do (despite it being fairly obvious at this point), if only for the slim chance that it might not be what he thinks. From some dark place in his brain Braun's laughs. 

“How?” Deacon asks, voice flat.

“How what? Come now, Dane, use those big boy words,” Zac says with a smirk.

His tone reminds Deacon of the words Braun said to him in a moment exactly like this: _‘You had such a wide vocabulary before we got to this place. What happened Jack? Cat got your tongue?’_

Deacon swallows. “How do you know he's a synth?”

“Oh, _that_. Well, you and me, we can't tell the difference. That’s the point after all. I mean, unless you know the person really well, you'd never know they were a synth. And we all know how hard it is to try and kill someone who wears the face of a loved one: _impossible._ ” Savage Zac uncrosses and recrosses his legs. “But Mammy? She's the only reliable way to tell. Give her a little fresh blood and she either likes or she doesn't. If she doesn't, it's because they're a synth.”

“Why don't you just let her kill them, then?”

Savage Zac laughs. “Would you want to eat something that had bits and pieces of machinery in it? Gross. Besides, that would be a dreadful waste of Bones' talents and he's _so_ good at his job.”

Sawbones points to the floor next to him. “Here,” he says and Deacon jumps to comply.

Even now, nearly ten years later, Braun still has a hold on him. He can still feel the way Braun would manipulate his body, his hands, and make Deacon do as he wished even as his mind railed against being a used in such a manner. 

This must be a perverse form of muscle memory because he cannot prevent himself from doing as he's told. He wants to say that he's fighting against it, but he's shut down. Part of him just wants to be told what to do to avoid having to accept responsibility, part of him is firmly denying anything is going wrong, and the part that is The Lone Wanderer can't deal with Braun rising into Deacon’s conscious mind as well as this situation right now; he’s on overload. 

Sawbones is slicing the man's shirt off. His movements are quick and precise, and within moments the man’s shirt is tatters around him. He keeps pleading, begging for them to stop, that he isn't a synth, that he just wants to go home to his family. He keeps looking at Deacon because he knows that he won't get any sympathy from the other two in the room and he hopes for some compassion from him. 

Deacon wishes he could be furious. To find that fire, that anger that drove him the last time he came face to face with The Deathclaws idea of torture, but there is nothing but fear. Not for what is going to happen, but for what _has_ happened. He didn’t witness The Claws cutting up Barbra (never had those awful memories simmering just below the surface), and it was easy to be angry and to find some Commonwealth justice for her. 

But here, in this place, with Vault 112 spilling itself all over his mind every night, he can barely find the strength to eat let alone find the fire that The Lone Wanderer is made of. All he can do is chant _’not again, not again, not again’_ in his head, as if that will somehow protect him from Sawbones.

_From Braun._

Sometimes it feels like he never made it out of that vault. Like his whole life since then has been some grand game Braun has been playing with his mind to break him. 

“Come here, Dane,” Savage Zac coos. “I know Bones wanted you there, but I’d rather you stood here, just in front of me.”

Deacon glances at Sawbones, but he’s busy finding his first tool. Deacon edges around the table until he’s standing just to the left of Savage Zac and near the abdomen of the man. 

“They’re lovely in their own way, aren’t they?” Savage Zac asks, voice right next to Deacon’s ear. “Just imagine all the work that must go into making them look like us, making them look like the people they replace. One must appreciate the level of skill it takes to create these homunculi.”

Deacon nods because at least in _that_ they agree and he wonders (briefly and not for the first time) what sort of technological marvels The Institute must hold. 

“I’m ready,” Bones says, a wicked looking knife poised above the man’s chest.

“No,” Deacon says, voice small. “Don’t.”

“Oh, I know, sugar cake. It’s so hard to watch, but I have to be sure that everyone understands what an _insidious_ threat these things are. Look at it. _Look._ ”

Deacon glances up to the man’s face. 

“It’s not real, Dane. It may have a face and cry out in pain, but it’s a machine. A little metal toy that wishes it were real.”

A rebuttal is on the tip of Deacon’s tongue when Bones slices into the man’s chest, causing him to scream in anguish and Deacon’s words die in his throat. He stumbles back a step, only to bump into the Savage Zac’s hand as it presses him forward again.

Bones drags the blade of his knife down, slicing the skin from sternum to pelvis. He makes another slice, a line directly across the top of the first cut so as to form a ‘T’ shape and pulls apart the flesh; rending the skin and muscles of the chest from the rib cage. Blood slides off the sides of the man’s chest and onto the table around him, absorbed by the tattered remains of his shirt. 

Bones clamps the skin of the man’s chest back -he’s sobbing in pain, making murmuring pleas for mercy- and pulls a pair of garden shears off his table. Deacon swallows thickly when he sees them and feels Braun’s voice whisper across his face. 

_’How many ribs are there?’ Braun asked._

Deacon shakes his head.

_’You don’t know? Or you don’t want to answer?’ Braun smiled at him, a cold thing that never reached his eyes. ‘Do I need to have a word with your father about your disobedience?’_

_‘No! I…There are ten pairs ribs attached to the sternum and spine. Two pairs are considered ‘floating’ and only attached to the spin.’_

Deacon’s eyes flick to the man on the table. _It’s not Jonas,_ he tells himself. _It’s not Jonas. It’s not Jonas. This isn’t Vault 112. I’m not there again._

_Braun held up the garden shears, they had long handles for leverage. ‘Count them,’ he said and started on the first._

Bones’ shears snip through the bottom-most rib that protects the chest cavity with a crunch, and the man howls. Deacon starts at the noise. Sawbones moves to rib’s counterpart. 

Seven pairs, fourteen ribs, and Deacon counts them. His voice barely a whisper, but still there. It is drowned out by the man’s cries at first, but by the time Bones makes it to the top most ribs, he’s gone quiet with blood loss and shock. Braun made him count loud enough so that the image of Jonas could hear, and though he can’t disobey this ghost of Braun, he doesn’t have to do it loud enough for anyone else to hear.

Wait. Bones is cutting _through_ the man’s ribs. 

“Stop,” Deacon says, voice a creaking tone above a whisper. “Stop,” he says again, voice stronger. “He’s not a synth. Stop!”

Bones looks up at him, poised to lift the man’s rib cage from his frame. “What?”

“He has bones! Synths have metal skeletons and he doesn’t!” Deacon moves forward, hesitating at the man’s side. He doesn’t know how to fix this situation. Fuck. He should have been a doctor. 

Sawbones looks past Deacon at Savage Zac, his eyebrow raised in question. Zac hooks his hand in Deacon’s elbow and tugs him backward. Deacon pulls from his grasp.

“Now, now, Dane. Don’t get all excited,” Zac says, voice hard. “Old models had metal skeletons. The Institute has been putting these newer ones out to make identification even more difficult.”

Deacon shakes his head; he’s found his fire again. The Lone Wanderer screams to the surface even as Braun claws at him from the depth of his memories, but Deacon ignores him, just as he’s been doing for the last seven years. 

“If he is a synth, then kill him and be done with it, but I won’t watch you torture him. I don’t care who or what he is, no one deserves this,” Deacon says with a snarl as he turns on Zac.

Savage Zac’s face twists in anger, his delicate features suddenly becoming sharp and cruel. “You will watch because I told you to.”

“No. I won’t. And I’m not going to let this continue.” Deacon pulls out his knife and rams it in-between the ribs of the man on the table, striking his heart. He makes one last groan of pain before going quiet. Deacon’s knife slides out with a slick slurping sound as the blood oozes out of the wound and pools between his lungs.

Savage Zac growls in rage and launches himself off the counter, shoving Deacon forward into the table. It scrapes across the floor as their combined weight slams into it. Bones steps backward to avoid getting hit. Savage Zac clings to Deacon’s back like a feral ghoul trying to overwhelm a meal, wrapping his legs around Deacon’s waist and his one arm around Deacon’s neck. 

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” Savage Zac growls in his ear. “This my gang, I run this place, and you _will_ follow me or I’ll kill you.” The cool point of a knife is pressed against Deacon’s neck, just below his jaw. “Submit.”

Deacon's knife is still in his hand and he wonders if he could stab Savage Zac with it before he jams his knife into Deacon's neck. 

Zac must read his thoughts because the knife pressures further into Deacon's neck, drawing blood. “ _Submit,_ ” he snarls in Deacon's ear.

“No.” Deacon snaps, against his better judgment, because even though he can feel his pulse knocking against Savage Zac's knife, The Wanderer doesn't like threats. He doesn't submit to anyone through force. “You think you're the first person that wanted me dead? Get in line, asshole.”

There's a moment of silence, then Savage Zac laughs. “You have fire, Dane. Takes a moment to get your hackles up, though, don't it? I wonder what or _who_ did that?”

“What do you care? Get off me.” 

Deacon holds his knife over Savage Zac's thigh. One can bleed out pretty damn fast if you hit the femoral artery.

Across the table, Bones impatiently crosses his arms, like he’s annoyed by Savage Zac’s display. Deacon isn't sure who the doctor expects to win between the two of them, but there's that table of sharp instruments that may be used against him should he somehow manage to kill Savage Zac. (Or maybe Sawbones doesn’t care who leads, as long as he gets to cuts synths apart).

“Careful,” Savage Zac sing-songs as he presses his knife deeper; Deacon grimaces in pain. I may like your fire, but your attitude has got to change. I don't like your lack of respect.”

“You want my respect? You earn it. And FYI, this bullshit isn't doin' it.”

“Do you need a little more praise, sugar cake? Should I tell you I like your choice of songs again? Do you want me to tell you your handsome? That I'd like to fuck you?” Savage Zac purrs. “Or should I tell you that I don't have to _earn_ anything. You choose to be here, _fought_ to be here. I didn't choose you. So put up or shut up.”

 _This is the moment, isn't it?_ Deacon thinks, _This is where I decide to kill these assholes for stick it out for a while longer._

He muses on it for a second, then sheathes his knife. He can wait; he can play the long game because the moment of their destruction will be so much sweeter for the anticipation. And perhaps, if what Savage Zac said about wanting him is true, he might turn that to his advantage. 

Savage Zac removes his knife from Deacon's neck and slides from his back. “Good choice,” he says when he's righted himself. “Now, you made this mess, you get to clean it up.”

Deacon frowns. Technically, Bones made this mess, but he supposed if disposing of a body is his punishment for this, he's getting off easy. Though, something tells him this isn't the end of it. 

“Where?” he asks.

Savage Zac scoots around the table and heads to the door. “Bones, tell him where he needs to go, won't you?”

Bones gives Deacon a calculated look as the door closes behind Savage Zac like he's reassessing him. Deacon thinks that though Zac seems to have mercurial and murderous moods, Sawbones is the one he needs to watch out for. If for nothing else because doesn't want to end up on this doctor's table. 

“There's a pit for burning bodies on the other side of the arena,” Bones says. “Dispose of this-” he waves at the table “-there.

Deacon feels a fresh wave of anger at that callousness and savours it. That emotion is so much better than the fear he felt moments ago and it helps shove Braun’s memory further down. 

He gives Bones a sharp nod and sets about freeing the man from the table. Sawbones watches him with sharp eyes. Deacon doesn't know how he's going to carry the man and keep his guts inside him and Bones doesn't offer any suggestions as Deacon pushes the flaps of skin closed. Without stitches or lashings of some kind, Deacon expects that he’ll need to burn the clothes he’s wearing. He picks the body up bridal-style and heads to the exit. 

“Door,” Deacon says, somewhat impatiently when Bones doesn't have the decency to open the way for him. The man is heavy and he’s probably going to have to stop a few times as he treks across Jamaica Plains. 

The doctor finally moves to open that door and then the second one, releasing Deacon from that terrible house. 

\- - - - -

He’d rather not talk about the charred horror that was the pit. 

Deacon will, however, admit to having a fit that night, after he woke in a cold sweat from a nightmare mashup of a Vault 112 and that horror house. Apparently, his mind thinks that Savage Zac and Braun would get along like a house on fire. He can’t stay in this place a second longer, not while the walls feel like they are crushing him, and the rest of the sleeping people in the house are stealing all his oxygen.

He leaves the bunk house, bomber jacket thrown over his sleeping clothes, boots hardly laced, a grey knit toque (he'd bought in U.P. when the weather started turning) on his head, and his rifle gripped in one hand. If he smoked, he probably would have taken them too. Maybe he should pick it up. Hell, it feels like he’s the only person in the whole of the Commonwealth that doesn’t smoke; could be something to the soothing effect nicotine apparently has. 

The November nights are cold and it's a shock to step from the warmed building into the streets. Deacon welcomes it, though; he needs something to chase the lingering memory of the nightmare away. He starts walking toward University Point. He doesn't know where he's going to go or what he's going to do, but he could really use a drink someplace far away from this hell hole. Though it is the middle of the night and he doubts the bar in U.P. is still open, maybe he'll get lucky and come across a caravan on their way to Quincy and he can talk them into sharing some hooch. 

He's crossing under the overpass, heading more toward the ocean than University Point now, when he hears a low yell. Deacon drops into a crouch and brings his rifle up, scanning the area. He's pretty exposed here; the grass may be tall, but there are no nearby vehicles to hide behind. Then, he hears his name.

“Deacon!” The Minutemen with the measured voice emerges from the grass, his light-coloured coat catching just enough of the moonlight to be visible. He apparently hit the deck when Deacon brought his rifle up. “Don't shoot,” he says. 

Deacon lowers his rifle with a scowl. “What the hell is wrong with you Quincy types? It's like you want someone to shoot you with all the creeping up on people you do.”

“I did call out to you earlier, but you didn't hear.”

“Well, considering my dress, do you think I'm looking for company right now?”

In the dark, Deacon can't see his expression, but the Captain’s voice is still that even baritone. “I think you're looking for an escape. Come back to camp with me; it’s cold out here.”

Deacon hesitates. “Do you have whiskey?”

“Yeah. Jackson keeps a couple of bottles on hand.”

“Okay. Lead on Captain Garvey.”

There’s no correction shot his way, so Deacon assumes he remembered the man’s name correctly.

The Minutemen have their main camp up against the underside of the collapsed section of overpass. The Deathclaws know that the Minutemen are stationed here, though Deacon hasn't heard anything about whether or not they know the Minutemen are watching them. Savage Zac likely has guys watching the camp as the Minutemen have made no attempt to hide their presence in this area. However, they can't stay in University Point with support the town gives to the gang. Too easy for them to be jumped in the middle of the night. Better sight lines out here.

With their observation point on the overpass, the Minutemen watch the road, University Point, and most importantly: they watch The Deathclaws. He wonders if the Captain was on duty and saw Deacon, or if one of his men gave word someone was leaving the camp. Deacon’s going to have come up with an explanation if anyone sees him making nice with the Minutemen. At this point, though, he's really too tired and angry to care what that explanation might be, but he'll think of something. He always does. 

Their camp is homey and well set-up, and the Minuteman on watch greets them with a nod. They’ve made it defendable with a few sandbag walls set up to help shield them from bullets (and the elements), and they have old military tents to sleep in. There’s a cooking grate set over one-half of their fire pit and though their camp's fire is low, Garvey stokes it back up to warm them in moments. 

Deacon slumps down in one of the fires patio chairs (he suspects they've been slowly scrounging things to make life here more comfortable until they go back to Quincy) as the Captain shuffles off to one of the tents. 

He appears a moment later with a bottle and two tin mugs. He pours Deacon a generous cup and splashes some into his own before he set the bottle down and takes the chair to the right of Deacon. They sit in silence for a while as Deacon drinks his whiskey with a few large gulps. It’s not as nice as the stuff at The Third Rail, but it’s not rotgut by any means. Garvey wordlessly fills his mug again and Deacon sits back and attempts to savour this cup.

“Why do you go by ‘Deacon’?” the Captain asks after they’ve sat for a while watching the fire.

Deacon shrugs. “Why not? It’s as good a name as any.”

“Glory says you guys-” the Captain waves his hand to indicate ‘The Railroad’, “-pick your own codenames.”

Deacon draws a breath, meaning to pick a story at random from his repertoire of bullshit stories about the ‘meaning’ of his name, and lets it back out again without saying a word. He just doesn’t have the energy to lie right now. 

“Serve,” Deacon replies after a moment, voice worn out. 

“Huh?”

“Deacon: it’s from a Greek word that’s translated in the Bible to mean ‘serve’.” He sighs. “I need the reminder,” he mutters the last bit to himself but the Captain hears anyways.

Garvey looks over at him. “Why?”

“We don’t know each other well enough for that, Captain. Frankly, the only reason you got the truth just now is because I’m too tired to lie to you.” Deacon muses on it for a moment. “And you gave me some of your whiskey.”

“Fair enough,” Garvey says and turns back to the fire. “Mama Murphey told me to look out for you.”

Deacon snorts. “You’ve suddenly gone down in my estimation, Captain.”

He chuckles. “Hey, I didn’t believe in it either, but maybe there’s something to her after all.”

“Yeah? What did she say? Look out for the red-head with the black armband? ‘Cause you might have the wrong one. There are a few red-headed Deathclaws.”

Garvey shakes his head and takes a sip of his whiskey. “No. She said to look out for: ‘the tarnished light that lights the lantern who preaches without saying a word.” He shrugs. “Sounds like you.”

Deacon is too tired to get into a debate over the merits of a chem addict who thinks she sees the future. He doesn’t doubt she has visions, a.k.a. hallucinations, but he’s not about to stake his future life and well-being on her vague words.

“When I saw you out there today,” Garvey continues when Deacon is silent. “I knew she was talking about you. I mean, I thought maybe it was you when we met before, but when you had to haul that man’s body across the Plains like that, after they brought him in kickin’ and screamin’, I knew.” The Captain looks over at him. “We see the shit they put you through over there, and everyday Davis is chewin’ at the bit to burn that place to the ground, but we won’t go until your order.”

The Lone Wanderer likes hearing that from Garvey; Deacon, not so much. 

“Not your General, Captain.”

 _Yet,_ The Wanderer says and Deacon is too tired to fight that thought.

“You’re running this mission, Deacon,” Garvey replies as if that’s the only authority he needs. 

Deacon makes a non-committal noise and pulls his legs back from the fire. The whiskey is warming is insides but the air is cold on his back and the heat from the fire is making the skin on his legs itch, so he turns his chair around to warm his other side. When he’s settled again, Deacon takes a swig of his drink. 

He’s glad Garvey hasn’t asked why he’s wandering around in the middle of the night because he doesn’t want to revisit that house or his nightmare for the rest of _this_ night. Mama Murphey’s description of him being a ‘tarnished light’ is hitting a little too close to home for his comfort and between the two, he could really use the safety of a vault right now. 

However, the heat of the fire and the calming presence of Captain Garvey is lulling Deacon to sleep. Even out here in the open, he’s feeling safer than he does in Jamaica Plains (though, he supposes that not saying much, since just about anything short of a deathclaw’s nest is safer than that place) and between the whiskey and his own tiredness he’s going to be snoring before long, but he can’t sleep here. Not with the prospect of heading back to the camp tomorrow to face whatever repercussions there might be for sleeping in the ‘enemies’ camp.

Deacon drains the rest of his whiskey and stands. “I should go,” he says.

Garvey looks up at him, eyebrow raised. “You’re going to wander back in the dark?”

“I wandered here in the dark, so yeah.”

“Take a lantern, at least.”

“And be seen crawling back from the Minutemen camp?” Deacon chuckles. “Can someone say, ‘bad idea’?”

Suddenly, an idea occurs to him; it’s sleep-muddled and half-cocked, but it’s an idea nonetheless. Deacon sits down again.

“ _Although…_ ”

“I’m not liking the sound of that,” the Captain says with a frown.

“You haven’t even heard my thought.”

“Your tone says it all, but alright, I’ll bite. What’s this ‘thought’?”

Deacon grins; he’s gotten a burst of energy as this idea forms into a plan. He moves his chair closer to Garvey and leans in as he quickly describes what happened in the house this afternoon. Leaving out most of the horrific details that he’s not interested in reliving. 

The Captain’s expression quickly turns to disgust. “He hit on you? While pressing a knife to your throat and a cooling body on the table next to you?”

“Yep and I’ve been wondering how to turn it to my advantage.” Deacon lays his hand on Garvey’s thigh and smirks. “I think, Captain, I’ve just found that opportunity.”

“Whoa, wait, _what?_ ” Garvey stammers and looks like a fish suddenly out of water. He swallows and tries again. “I think you’ve lost me.”

“Surely, I haven’t,” Deacon says and slides his hand a little higher. At the Captain’s helpless look Deacon laughs and leans in. “It’s just for show. They’re watching this camp, ya know. Zac strikes me as a man who always gets what he wants, but if he was denied? Nobody thinks too clearly in the face of rejection.”

Deacon shifts forward in his chair until their legs are interlocked and his knee bumps against the seat of Garvey’s chair. 

“And if at some later date, when I’ve pushed everyone’s buttons, tugged on their insecurities, sabotaged their equipment, and we’ve ‘broken up’, Zac might not be able to resist the opportunity to get what he wants.” 

Deacon grabs the lapels of the Captain’s heavy coat and pulls him forward until they’re almost nose to nose and he can surely smell the whiskey on Deacon’s breath.

“Then, it’ll be my knife and his throat,” Deacon whispers. “And I won’t hesitate to take his _fuckin’_ head off.”

Garvey is looking at him like a startled ragstag, but he hopes that the man’s strategical mind wins out over his discomfort. 

“That’s awfully cold, man,” he finally says, his voice returning to his normal, even tone. He hasn’t pulled back from where Deacon has him, so he’s going to take that as a good sign. He just needs to push the Captain a little more.

“We both know he deserves it. Besides, I’m a ‘tarnished light’, remember?”

Garvey starts shaking his head like he about to deny that statement, but Deacon hushes him.

“Just take me back to your tent, we’ll sleep on opposite sides, and in the morning I’ll do the rest.”

There’s a long moment of silence while the Captain thinks about his proposal. He can see the war raging across Garvey’s face, between the tactical advantages and his morals telling him that deceiving someone like that so you can stick a knife in them when they’re the most vulnerable is wrong. Then:

“Okay. If you think this’ll work and won’t get you killed, then yeah. We can pretend.”

Deacon grins and stands, pulling the Captain up with him. The fire has almost died down again and as they make their way across the camp to Garvey’s tent, the Captain tells the Minuteman on watch to check on it. There’s no snow on the ground yet and there is still the possibility of the embers lighting a brush fire. 

As Garvey crouches to unlatch his tent flaps, Deacon places a hand between his shoulder blades. He doesn’t want to be too forward and make the man uncomfortable, but there need to be a few showy acts to make the night sentries infer what is about to happen in the tent. Though, he probably doesn’t even feel Deacon’s hand with those heavy metal plates in his coat. 

To Deacon’s surprise, once the Captain has the flaps open, he tugs Deacon inside with a yank that has him stumble as he steps on one of his loose boot laces and they end up in a heap on the floor of the tent. For the first time in months, Deacon laughs loud and lively.

It feels good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, June is kicking my ass. Somehow there is more things packed into these 30 days than there has been in the last five months combined. It must be a summer thing. 
> 
> Georgie mentions _‘I’ve Been Everywhere’_ to Deacon. The version I listen to is by Hank Snow. Though, Johnny Cash’s version may be more popular for North Americans.
> 
> Deacon sings Chuck Berry’s _‘No Particular Place to Go’_ while fighting. He also mentions Buddy Holly’s _‘Rave On’_ to Savage Zac who sings the first couple lines of the chorus. 
> 
> I didn’t expect to stay this long in University Point, but the next chapter should be the last. It might end being really long to make sure this arc is good and finished because the chapter after that with Nick has to be its own chapter. I most of the time I only ever have a vague idea of where I want a chapter or an arch to go (because I like being surprised by where a story and the characters take me), so this is as much a surprise to me as to you. :D


	12. Part 1 - Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;_   
>  _it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock_   
>  _the meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss_   
>  _who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger._
> 
> _-Othello (3.3.165)_

Deacon wakes the next morning with no idea what time it is. 

The inside of the tent is a semi-dark green with a crack of sunlight lazily streaming in between the not-quite-closed flaps of the tent. He shifts slightly in his sleeping bag (he’s put someone out of their actual bed with this half-baked plan of his, but he hopes they’ll forgive one night every once in while to keep the deception alive) and realizes that he slept soundly. No nightmares. That alone is worth more than all the caps in the ‘Wealth.

For what nightmare could possibly best the walking wall of steel that is Captain Garvey, with his steady voice and stylish hat?

Savage Zac is going to have a fit. 

Deacon sits up on the foam mat that’s protecting him from the cold ground and as the sleeping bag pools in his lap, he shivers. The air is cold. He looks around for his jacket and spots it in a crumpled heap at the side of the sleeping bag along with his boots and rifle. Someone must have brought that here, because he pretty much forgot about it after he set it down beside the chair at the camp fire.

He can’t wait to go back to his plasma pistol. The rifle is a great weapon, but it has to be carried around everywhere in his hands, or slung over his shoulder, and it’s beginning to annoy him. It’s easier to just shove his pistol in the holster on his leg and be done with it. He never has to look around and wonder if he remembered to take the damn thing with him. Maybe what he needs to do is get a holster like they have on horse’s saddles in those old westerns, but for his back. That would make carrying the thing easier. 

Who would he talk to about something like that? Should he try and make one back at Ticon?

Deacon shakes his head and grabs his jacket. That’s a future project. He has no time to work on something like that right now. He crawls out of the sleeping bag once he's slid into his jacket; then, readjusts his toque and pulls his boots back on. He laces them up properly this time so that they won’t trip him again, grabs his rifle, and steps out of the tent. 

The morning sun is bright and he squints, momentarily blinded after the darkness of the tent -he left his sunglasses back at the bunk house. Deacon tucks his rifle between his legs and zips up his jacket, then he heads out. He considers looking for Garvey to let him know he’s leaving, but Deacon’s going to try and sell this as a carnal infatuation and not some soppy Romeo and Juliet story about a pair of star-crossed lovers from disparate sides of the Commonwealth: one’s a Minuteman, the other’s a Gunner, can love conquer all?

No. His walk of shame should look _shameful._ After all, how could he lower himself to sleep with a Minuteman? Deacon snorts in laughter. At least he makes himself laugh.

He passes by the Minuteman on watch; it’s Lieutenant Davis. She wolf-whistles at his back and it’s all Deacon can do to not burst into laughter. At least this time she’s not asking to shoot him. He counts that as win.

The walk back to Jamaica Plains warms Deacon and he heads back to the bunk house to stash his rifle before he heads over to the church for some coffee. There are a few people milling about the common area downstairs, but the sleeping quarters are quiet. Deacon drops his gun on his bed and changes into some warmer clothes. It’s too cold outside to be wandering around in his pajamas. 

When he’s properly dressed again, Deacon walks over to the church. Breakfast seems to still be in full swing, so he imagines that it can’t be that late in the morning. He joins the line at the food table; there’s scrambled deathclaw eggs this morning and Deacon grabs some (he’s feeling pretty hungry today), along with coffee and a couple mutfruits -the last fresh ones he’ll probably see until next year.

As he’s scanning the room for a place to sit, Georgie materializes at his side.

“Where the hell have you’ve been?” she whispers urgently and drags him to the table she’s sitting at. Deacon nods to Alan (broken nose, so he knows he got the right one) and Corvega as he sits down. 

“Needed some fresh air,” Deacon replies.

“In the middle of the friggin’ night?”

Deacon nods and digs into his food. 

“Johnny came by, lookin’ for ya,” Corvega says, a wary expression on his face. “Big boss wants to see ya.”

 _And so it begins,_ he thinks. 

Deacon raises his eyebrows as he takes a sip of coffee. “Yeah? What about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Georgie says as she plants her elbow on the table and puts her face in her hand: the very image of casual curiosity. It’s shattered in the next moment as she leans in and hisses: “Maybe because you went a fucked a Minuteman!”

Across the table, Alan snorts. At the words or Georgie’s display, he doesn’t know. He might laugh himself if he had the freedom to do so.

Deacon hums and continues eating. “Word travels fast around here.”

“That’s all you’re going to say? You _literally_ slept with the enemy!”

Deacon turns and look at her. “How is it any of your business who I choose to let off some steam with?”

Georgie gapes at him like she can’t understand why he isn’t freaking out.

“Might want a better defense than that when you talk with Savage Zac,” Alan says as he gathers his dishes. “Hell, ‘whoops, I tripped and landed with his dick in me,’ is probably a better one.”

Deacon almost spits his coffee out across the table. After he’s choked it down, he starts sniggering. It’s almost like Alan was _there_.

“But not much fuckin’ better,” Corvega replies with a reluctant grin. 

Georgie is the only one who doesn’t seem to find Alan’s comment amusing. “This isn’t fucking funny! Savage Zac will tear you apart for playing nice with those guys.”

“We didn’t ‘play nice’, Georgie. We fucked. Plain and simple. It wasn’t some lovely-dovey affair, or did you forget I was once a Gunner? Minutemen and Gunners don’t play nice.”

“It doesn’t matter what _I_ think. It matters what _he_ thinks. You saw what he did to that man who threw the bottle at your head!” She grabs his arm. “Just imagine what he might to do you for this.”

“She’s got a point, Dane,” Corvega says. “Don’t be so flippant about this.”

Deacon sighs. Maybe this idea isn’t his best -don’t play with fire, and all that, but it’s too late now to turn back. He can control this; it might go a little wide, but in the end he’s certain he’ll get the result he’s looking for. Deacon can only hope that he’s the only one to get caught in the backlash.

“I’m not being flippant. Look, I get you’re tryin’ to look out for me and I appreciate it, but let’s save the ‘end of the world’ stuff for when it actually happens. Okay?”

Georgie growls and throws her hands up, leaving the table in a huff. Deacon watches her go and then returns to his breakfast. He hasn’t had an appetite this strong in ages and it would be a travesty to waste it. 

“Don’t worry about her,” Corvega says, “She’ll be the first one to pull you down off the wall if it comes to that.” 

The man isn’t inspiring a lot of confidence here, but Deacon’s pretty sure Savage Zac won’t kill him.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Yes, let’s.”

When he’s finished his breakfast, Deacon makes his way over to Bloody Garrett’s shop. When he’s not training for a fight or fighting, Deacon helps with the more mechanical aspects of weapon maintenance. 

Bloody Garrett and Ash n’ Smoke share the bombed out building where Savage Zac’s power armour is kept. It might be considered too tight for all the various equipment and gear that makes itself home in this place, but the two of them have worked a system so that they don’t run over one another all that often, and when they do, Deacon suspects Garrett does it on purpose. 

It’s not hard to see why the man likes Ash; she’s strong, smart, and has a collection of jokes that would make even the most seasoned raider blush -probably where she learned them all. She has a temper though, and very little patience for anyone besides Johnny Maim, Savage Zac, and Bloody Garret -Deacon’s been on the receiving end of her ire a couple of times when he accidentally used some of her tools without realizing they belonged to her. 

Garrett on the other hand seems to be her opposite. He’s a quiet man, with far more patience than Ash -who will fly off the handle with the smallest provocation-, he has a quick mind, and a wit that often leaves you surprised. The only thing he doesn’t have tolerance for is incompetence, so there’s been a dearth of help because no one is up to the man’s high standards. Until Deacon, that is. 

Ash has been more excepting of Deacon since she respects that because Garrett has yet to throw him out, he must be good at something. However, like any raider, she is quite territorial over things that she considers ‘hers’ and Deacon does his best to stay out of her path. He doesn’t believe she’s ignorant of Garrett’s crush, but she’s quite content with Johnny (he _is_ the better looking of the two) and has nothing to gain from sleeping with Garrett.

Deacon’s going to have to come at them from the Johnny side and see if he can’t prey on the niggling suspicion every man has when faced with the situation of his girl hanging out day after day with another man. No matter how evolved a man is, there’s always that caveman sense of ‘that’s mine!’ when it comes to someone they’re involved with. Deacon knows he’s no exception and he can’t imagine Johnny is either. 

When Deacon arrives at the shop, Johnny Maim is waiting for him. He knows it’s Dane the man is looking for because he’s leaning against the outside of the building and when he spots Deacon’s approach, he straightens. 

“Hey,” Deacon says, hands shoved in the pockets of his coat to protect them from the cold -he hasn’t seen his gloves for a few days and suspects Hairy hid them on him (they haven’t been anything close to resembling buddies since Deacon put him down in the ring, and Johnny has yet to acquiesce to a rematch, so Hairy does petty bullshit things like hiding Deacon’s gloves and his chest armour. It isn’t technically stealing, so he can't just slip word to Savage Zac that someone is breaking his rules).

“Boss man wants to see ya,” Johnny says by way of greeting. His tone is neutral, almost exasperated. Though, whether that’s because of Deacon or something else, he isn’t sure.

“So I hear.”

Johnny nods. “Scuttlebutt is alive and fuckin’ well in this place; come on.” He walks past Deacon up the steps stone steps that lead to the parking lot. From there it's a quick jaunt to Savage Zac’s house.

Deacon’s never been in the place; no one besides the main leaders and Zac’s occasional boy-toys ever are. There are couple of Claws milling about on the house’s porch. A sad excuse for a set of guards; they’re playing checkers on an old chess board next to a burning fire barrel. When the Minutemen do come to town, he doubts these two will stick around to defend their boss. 

Johnny opens the door without knocking and Deacon follows him inside. 

This house is designed in a similar manner to the ones Deacon came across in Fairline Hill Estates when he was killing Gunners with the Minutemen. It has a staircase just to the left of the door and the expanse of the living area stretching out past what was once probably a kitchen. There are no remaining elements of it, but he can see the clean wallpaper in a strip on the wall where the counters and appliances once stood. No need to have a kitchen when you live right across from where the food is stored and served.

The house is dark, despite the sunny morning outside, and Deacon pulls off his sunglasses. He tucks one leg into knitting of his toque so they hang from his head and don’t get smudged in his pockets. Like all the lived in buildings in Jamaica Plains, the windows have been boarded up to keep out the summer heat and the winter cold. 

A wood burning stove is sitting the spot where the oven once stood. It's using the same shaft for its exhaust that the stove once used for its overhead fan and keeping the house pleasantly warm. Beyond that is a living space where several couches are gathered in front of a chair that’s been raised through the use of several wooden pallets. A coffee table sits pressed against the front and Deacon thinks it’s meant to be stair of sorts. 

Savage Zac is sitting in the raised chair, and he’s staring at Deacon. His legs are crossed and his hands steepled; he looks like a particularly severe judge ready to hand down an execution. 

Johnny directs him to stand in front of the chair, while he takes a seat on the couch. Brother Charlie is standing beside the pallet throne and behind Zac, Deacon spots Sawbones leaning on a table, watching the proceedings.

“So, had a little fun last night, did we?” Savage Zac asks. His tone is light, but if looks could kill Deacon would have a pike through his gut right now. Yeah, _a pike._ Somehow he images that Savage Zac wouldn’t be satisfied with a knife.

Deacon nods, letting a small smirk creep across his mouth. As if he were recalling how ‘fun’ it was. He sees Zac bristle somewhat, but the man’s words are still light.

“Dreadfully naughty of you, consorting with the enemy like that.”

“I wasn’t consorting. I was just getting fucked good and hard,” Deacon replies.

Johnny snorts from the couch and Savage Zac’s eyes slide to him. He holds up a hand in apology and Zac returns his attention to Deacon.

“You needn’t’ve gone and seen those dreadful Minutemen if that’s what you were looking for.”

“Like I need another asshole to challenge me in the ring ‘cause I fucked a friend or a crush or something," Deacon says with a scoff. “Besides, it’s hard to find someone with the right... _leverage_ for my height.”

Savage Zac’s expression gets very dark and Deacon gives a silent crow of victory. Not only did he make it seem like it wasn’t interested in Zac (and let’s be honest, he’s not), but he also implied that Zac couldn’t satisfy him. Deacon might end up regretting this, but right now that expression is priceless.

Deacon continues. “Look, if what you’re worried about is me sharing state secrets or something, don’t. The Minutemen are a dying group; they’ll never be a major force in the ‘Wealth again. If I wanted to be one of ‘em, I woulda joined in Quincy, but like you said, I fought to be here, and here is where I wanna stay.” 

“Your voice says one thing, sugar cake, but your actions keep saying something else entirely.”

Deacon makes a show of being annoyed. “Just because I don’t wanna see a synth toyed with and tortured, doesn’t mean I don’t want every last one of those sonvabitches dead. I also kill every raider I come across, sick fucks that they are, but I don’t torture them for shits and giggles. A bullet works just as well to get my message across.”

“Indeed.” Savage Zac’s eyes slip to Johnny with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Johnny frowns and gives Zac a look of ‘don’t fuckin' start’. Huh, interesting. 

Zac turns back to Deacon. “How do you know this Minuteman?”

“We met down in Quincy when I was Gunner.” Savage Zac quirks an eyebrow in question and Deacon expands on his story. “He wasn’t wearing his arm band or that stupid fuckin’ hat they all have-” Johnny chuckles here “-and I wasn’t wearin’ my flags. We fucked and went our separate ways. It wasn’t until a later battle that we realized who the other one was.”

Savage Zac tilts his head slightly. “You didn’t just kill him on principle?”

“I might've, but I was already injured and my rifle flung outta my grasp when he came up on me. Spared my life, being the soft-hearted pussy that he is. These days we practice a live and let live philosophy.” Deacon shrugs. “He doesn’t agree with my life choices and I don’t agree with his, but we occasionally put aside our mutual disgust of one another and fuck.”

Savage Zac makes a noise somewhere between disbelief and acknowledgment before he springs up from his chair and stands on edge of the pallet stack. For the first time in their acquaintance, Zac looks down on Deacon. 

“Well, you always seem to know just what to say, Dane, but I do so like actions over words. So, here’s what we’re going to do...” He looks over at Johnny. “You still need help with egg collection?”

Johnny frowns slightly, but nods.

“Good. Dane, it might be best if you take some time off from helping Garrett -I’m sure he’ll feel your loss keenly, but somehow I suspect you’ll miss him more.” Zac smiles at him; it’s a wicked thing. “Until I tell you otherwise, your duty is to help Johnny wrangle eggs. If you’re still around in a few days, I might forgive this transgression.”

Deacon is starting to regret bringing Savage Zac’s ire down on him.

“Go.” Zac waves him off and Johnny stands from the couch. As they reached the door of the house, Savage Zac wishes Deacon good luck with a laugh. 

Johnny leads him through the streets of Jamaica Plain and it’s not until they are past the main bunk house that Johnny speaks.

“You pissed him off good, Dane.”

Deacon frowns and plays ignorant. “What business is it of his who I fuck? I get the other thing, we uh, had a bit of a disagreement over the merits of torturing synths.”

Johnny laughs. “Zac pressed a blade to your throat while the two of you argued over who was fuckin’ boss. Not many people have the balls to stand up to him after they go through The Gutting, let alone kill the synth before it’s done. I was fuckin’ impressed. Shit, _Zac_ was impressed, but he can’t let his authority be challenged.” Johnny shrugs. “As for that other thing, I don’t think it matters, but Zac considers everything within his fuckin’ sight to belong to him, and he don’t like the reminder that sometimes it doesn't. Besides, we’ve all fucked some questionable people. As long as you ain’t helpin’ ‘em, we ain’t got a problem.”

“I’m not. Got no interest in their crusade; might hear some interesting things while in their camp, though. Could be useful.”

“And that's exactly why you ain’t dead. Survive this and Zac’ll let you go back to work with Garrett.”

Deacon raises a dubious eyebrow. “He isn’t gonna to keep thinkin’ of creative ways to try and kill me?”

“Naw. He likes watching you fight too much.”

Unfortunately, the deathclaw eggs that get served at breakfast every few weeks as a replacement for mirelurk eggs (which tend to grate after a while), don’t magically end up in the kitchen, ready to be cracked open by the various ingrates of the gang who have managed to piss someone off just enough to get banished to cooking duty. Oh no. They get into the hands of those people, because of people like Deacon, who’ve managed to call death down on their very heads in the form of Mammy, her cage, and her eggs. 

Remember how deathclaws don’t like things in their territory or things hurting their children? Well, this shit job does both. At the same time. And while, _technically,_ the eggs aren’t her children, since there’s no daddy deathclaw to fertilize them, Mammy doesn’t see it that way and no one has tried to reason with her on the subject. 

After all, deathclaws are terribly unreasonable.

Mammy’s cage is just on the other side of the arena. There’s a small corridor between the two so that she can be lead into the arena without having to get within swiping distance of her claws. Deacon’s been to a couple fights since he first joined, and as Zac said before, no one survived. He wonders if Yin and Yang don’t actually pick potential recruits based on their capabilities, but rather on the gear they might leave behind if they don’t make it out alive.

It’s been pretty good pickings lately.

Her cage is larger than Deacon would have guessed for a gang of ruthless thugs, but they apparently treat the symbol of their gang with some manner of respect. There’s a couple of Deathclaws milling about near the door of the cage while one checks over a battered and scarred set of power armour off to one side. When they catch sight of Johnny and Deacon, the Claws give him varying looks of pity and amusement. Maybe he’ll get lucky and get to be the one using the power armour.

Johnny stops next to the armour and asks the man working on it how it’s fairing.

“Got the hydraulics in the arm reconnected, and beefed up the armour on both arms so hopefully, it won’t get sliced again. Be better if I had access to the shit Ash has for the boss man’s armour, but…” he trails of with shrug. 

Ash won’t let anyone touch any of the things she has for Savage Zac’s power armour, not even to help Johnny. Raiders.

“Is it ready to go? ‘Cause I got our latest egg wrangler, right here.” Johnny jabs a thumb at Deacon. “Or as we like to call it ‘round here, That Poor Bastard.”

“Wow, really makin’ me feel good about my chances,” Deacon drawls. 

Johnny claps him on the shoulder as the Claw looking after the power armour chuckles. “It’s ready to go whenever the Poor Bastard is,” he says.

A knot of apprehension settles in Deacon’s gut as Johnny leads him away from the power armour. 

“Ever use one of those things?” he asks.

Deacon nods. “A few times. Was awhile ago, now, though.”

The Brotherhood taught Deacon everything there was to know about wearing, maintaining, and ultimately how to beat power armour so he might have a better chance against The Enclave. It seemed like it was in their best interest to do so, even if some of them were reluctant to educate him, because if The Lone Wanderer was seen charging around in a suit with the Brotherhood’s symbol on it, it could only boost their standing in the Capital. After Deacon used that knowledge to wipe most of The Outcasts out, they probably regretted teaching him all those things. He imagines they regret ever meeting The Lone Wanderer. 

_Ditto,_ he thinks.

“Good to know. It’s a real pain in the ass to have to teach someone to use these things, but unfortunately, you’re not The Distraction. You’re That Poor Bastard.” Johnny moves him so they stand in front of the heavy steel bars of Mammy’s cage. “The power armour isn’t delicate enough to handle the eggs without breaking them, so you have to go in there and grab them without its protection.” 

He points out a large nest in the far corner of the cage, it’s a mound of dried leaves, twigs, and dirt. The floor of the cage is barren and all the grass has been trampled away, so The Deathclaws must gather those things from the area around Jamaica Plains to facilitate Mammy’s need for a nest. It’s actually pretty clever. Mammy is sitting in the small alcove of the door that leads to the arena, almost out of sight, but not quite. She’s watching her nest and the activities of the Claws outside the cage.

“Frank’ll go in in the power armour and distract Mammy. She charges at that thing like no fuckin’ tomorrow. You have to slip in behind, try not to get caught in their exchange, dig the eggs out of the nest, and shove them out that small door there-” Johnny points out a small, hinged door on the opposite side of the cage from where the nest sits. “Mammy’s nest used to be on the other side, but she got wise to us. Now you have run across the width of the cage to get to it, but it’s still better than fuckin’ tryin’ to bring ‘em out the front door.”

Deacon looks between the nest and the small door and knows that if he somehow manages to get out of this without a scratch he’ll be lucky. If he gets out alive, it’ll be Goddamned miracle. He has to admit, it’s a brilliant form of punishment; both a productive exercise and an effective deterrent against future dissidence. 

Knowing himself though, Deacon might have to do this more than once. Probably after the next time he ‘fucks’ Captain Garvey.

“Got any armour?” Johnny asks.

Deacon raps on his bomber jacket, the metal plate making a muffled clanking sound.

Johnny nods. “Cool. You ready, then?”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “To be in a small enclosure with that beast again? Fuck no. But since I don’t got a choice in the matter: bring it.”

Johnny laughs and calls for Frank to suit up.

\- - - - -

He’s never really cared for the noise that power armour makes. It clangs, and creaks, and stomps, and generally makes a mess of everything. It is useful when you're taking on an enemy that requires brute force to defeat (like a deathclaw), but in most situations, Deacon is a firm believer in strategy over strength. In quiet, knife-slicing stealth, rather than in loud, hydraulic-assisted stomping. 

This particular power armour is nosier than he remembers them being. Probably because it doesn’t have some dogma obsessed, Buffout-swilling, power armour jock to look after it with all the tech of The Brotherhood at their disposal. For all their enumerable faults, The Brotherhood knows how to care for the technology it has scavenged, or stolen, as the case may be.

Johnny and another Claw pull the heavy front door back along a track to let Power Armour Frank into the cage. As soon as he clears the door, they shove it back closed. Frank stomps over to the nest, making it seems like he’s about to destroy it, and Mammy screams out of the alcove with a roar and knocks Frank back. He stumbles, but the power armour corrects itself and prevents him from going down. He takes a swing at the deathclaw with a large piece of solid metal piping that won’t do too much damage to the beast, but will help to keep her off of him long enough for Deacon to do his job.

Which, starts right now.

Johnny waves for Deacon to step up to the door and they yank it open a crack for him to squeeze through. Deacon slips around the side of the cage, keeping one eye on the proceedings of the fight, and one eye on his destination. He slows when he gets close to where Mammy is standing and has to dive to the dirt when her tail whips overhead. The Claws seem to be pretty good about keeping her cage clean of shit, but the ground reeks of piss and now it’s all over him. 

Which, now that he thinks of it, might not be so bad. If her scent covers his, she’ll be less likely to notice him. 

Deacon rolls, coating himself in dirt and scrambles upright when the foot of the power armour stomps a little too close to home. He stops at the small door first to shove it open and though it bangs against the wall on the outside of the cage, Mammy doesn’t notice. Then, Deacon makes a beeline for the nest mound.

The nest is nearly hip high on Deacon (it would probably pushing waist height on anyone else) and it about four feet wide. He kneels on the soft dirt around it and starts digging. The decomposing leaves and twigs are giving some heat as they break down, and surprisingly, deepest part of the nest is warm. Mammy will likely stop laying eggs once the snow flies, but deathclaws are amazingly resilient, so the cold weather isn’t bothering the eggs. He feels blindly around with his hands, until he brushes against the pebbled surface of an egg.

Deathclaw eggs are about the size of a man’s forearm and Deacon had to dig a hole to pull it from its position in the nest. It rocks back and forth slightly as he scrabbles at the sides of it, and he gets impatient for it to come loose. When it finally does, a section of the nest sinks into the new hole that has formed and Deacon rolls the egg into his lap. 

The eggs weight about nine pounds. Deacon lifts it and scrambles over to the small door. He shoves it out the hole, not overly concerned with its safety -their shells are thick and a pack of grown men could stand on a group of them without breaking them. Deacon suspects that the problem with power armour is that the metal hands and the hydraulics of the arms would bring too much force on a single point on the egg while attempting to dig them out, and thus make the egg shell weak and ripe for breaking when pulled from the nest.

As he heads back to the nest, Deacon glances over at the battle proceedings. Mammy is still distracted by Power Armour Frank. Her roars are shaking the small cage as she stomps around the armour, trying to find a soft spot to bite through. Frank is keeping Mammy’s back to Deacon, but he’s got to hurry and get the rest out. 

He kneels back at the edge of the nest and starts shoving the decomposing mess out of the way. Now that the first egg is out, it has destabilized the whole nest’s structure and it’s a lot easier for Deacon to dig the around the remaining eggs. Of which, there are two. 

The second one quickly comes free after Deacon shifts it back and forth a few times to loosen it from the dirt and debris. He hauls it over to the door and shoves it out with little fanfare. 

The fight seems to be getting more heated and aggressive (if that’s even possible for a deathclaw) and Power Armour Frank has to beat her back with the metal pipe. Her tail is getting dangerously close to Deacon and he presses himself against the far wall to avoid getting hit. At the front of the cage, Johnny is yelling at Frank to give her some space so that she gets away from the nest. Deacon scrambles along the wall, determined to get the last egg and get the fuck out of this place.

The last egg comes free with as much ease as the last one, and Deacon picks it up from the center of the nest. His boots slide down the side of the mound and as he hits the hard dirt of the ground, he can see Mammy’s tail out of the corner of his eye. Deacon ducks down into a crouch and avoids it, but as he’s coming up, her tail whips back the other way and catches Deacon in the side, knocking him to the ground and the egg from his grasp. 

Mammy’s tail has laid him out on the ground and he coughs as air is pulled reluctantly back into his lungs, but she doesn’t seem to realize that she’d hit Deacon with her tail -too focused on Power Armour Frank. He watches as the egg rolls, in a somewhat curved path, into the vision of the deathclaw. There’s a moment where he thinks she won’t see it and he pulls his feet back under himself, ready to stand and make a dash for it, but then she freezes. One massive hand wrapped around the metal pipe to prevent Frank from using it as she stares at the egg rolling lazily on the ground. 

Her head whips around to look at her nest and finds Deacon staring (at her with what he’s certain is an ‘oh fuck,’ expression) with the desecrated remains of her nest behind him. He’s never been one to ascribe emotions to animals, but in that moment, he’s sure Mammy is staring at him with hate. She roars, louder and angrier than ever before, and Deacon stands ready to sprint for his life. 

Johnny yells for Frank to block her as Deacon dashes along the one side of the cage. There’s a swipe that’s aimed at him that lands with a heavy _thunk_ on the pauldron of the power armour. Deacon scoops the egg as he goes by, but it rolls awkwardly in his grasp and slips from it once again, rolling toward the main door of the cage. He keeps moving as Mammy does everything she can to get past Frank to attack him.

Deacon makes it in front of the two and darts across the cage in an angle for the door -Johnny and the other Claw have it open and are wildly gesturing for him to run faster. Mammy roars again, there’s the sound of claws screeching across metal, and then the heavy sound of something hitting the wall. Deacon looks back momentarily, as he stoops to grab the egg one last time, to see Frank kneeling next to the wall where Mammy had shoved him. She growls at Deacon, as he cradles the egg, and pounces. 

Mammy’s arm draws back and the muscles tense and ripple beneath her thick hide as Deacon keeps moving. He’s almost at the door and starts turning slightly to fit himself through the narrow gap, when Mammy’s claws come down hard on his upper, left back, slicing through the hardened leather plates that are in the back of the jacket. As the claws catch on muscle and skin, Deacon twists with the force of it, causing the claws to loosen and jump the column of his spine before embedding themselves again in his lower, right back.

Deacon screams, the pain of it pushing far beyond the suppressing powers of adrenaline. The door to the cage opens further as he tumbles toward it, his forward momentum carrying him even as his legs threaten to crumple under the shock and pain of it all. The ground shakes slightly underfoot as he falls through the open door, and he hears the pained roar of the deathclaw as Power Armour Frank crashes into her with the full weight of his armour, slamming her into the far wall.

Johnny wraps one large hand around Deacon’s upper arm and drags him off to the side (he's still clutching the fucking egg), as Frank careens through the door. Johnny lets go of him, leaving Deacon to writhe on the ground (swearing a breathless litany of every creative turn of phrase he has ever heard), as he helps the other Claw slam and lock the cage door before Mammy can right herself. 

Johnny appears at his side again and kicks the egg out of the way as Mammy roars and claws the door of the cage. The man has to yell to be heard above the noise as he directs Frank to pick Deacon up and run him across town to Bones. Frank pulls Deacon over his shoulder and settles him across the top of his armour fireman-style and sprints across Jamaica Plains with all the assisted speed of power armour. The ride is not smooth and Deacon bounces painfully all the way, blood slipping down his left arm and the side of his face. 

As Frank runs, Deacon’s head starts to feel light, his vision beings to get blurry as his ears fill with cotton, and he suddenly feels sick. The bouncing stride nauseates Deacon further and he nearly vomits. The only thing that keeps the power armour clean is that the moment he thinks he going throw-up, Frank yanks him off his shoulders and set him on the ground. The surprise of it snaps Deacon’s world back into place just in time for his legs to buckle. Frank braces him with an arm as Johnny runs up and grabs Deacon around the back. He yelps in pain, but Johnny drags him up the stairs and into the house, ignoring Deacon in favour of getting him aid.

Once inside, Johnny bellows for Bones and leads him to the gurney. Johnny has to yell a second time before the doctor appears from a small ladder-like staircase that leads to a loft.

“What do you need, Johnny?” he asks, voice bored.

“Dane got caught by Mammy’s claws. He needs a couple stimpaks, a shot of Med-X-” Deacon weakly shakes his head, but is ignored “-and probably some blood, since half of it is now on the fuckin’ pavement from here to the arena.”

Bones tilts his head and considers them. “If he must stay here, put him on one of the beds. Preferably with a gag so I don’t have to listen to him whimper,” he says and then turn to leave.

“Bones!” Johnny barks, confusion sliding over his face. “Where the fuck are you goin’?”

“Wasn’t I clear? I’m not aiding him, Johnny. Zac’s orders.”

“ _What?!_ ” Johnny growls. 

Bones turns around again and begins climbing his stairs. If it were Deacon, he’d not turn his back on that voice or Johnny’s expression.

“You heard. Talk with him if you have a problem with it.”

Johnny starts swearing and frankly, it’s putting Deacon’s earlier words to shame. Ash must have taught him. He leads Deacon back out of the house and into the street. Frank is still standing outside the door, and even though his face is hidden behind the power armour’s helmet, he strikes Deacon as surprised, but the pain is making him hazy, so perhaps he’s just seeing things. 

Johnny tells Frank to carry Deacon to the main bunk house. 

“You’d better fuckin’ have stimpaks of your own,” Johnny says as Frank hoists him again. 

Deacon manages a hoarse, “Yeah.”

He thinks he looses consciousness between Sawbones’ clinic and the main bunk house because one moment he’s sliding onto Frank’s shoulders, and the next, he’s sliding off again. Johnny leads him inside, past a few gawking Claws and upstairs. The gouges in his back burn and ache with every little movement, it hurts to breathe as every intake of air feels like it’s tearing the muscles in his back anew. He woozy with pain and shock, and pretty soon, he’s sure, blood loss as well. 

As they crest the top of the stairs, Johnny asks which room is his, and Deacon manages to gesture to the correct one. They squeeze in through the narrow door, Johnny’s wide frame taking up most of the space, and from the top bunk of Deacon’s bed, Georgie bolts upright. Her _Silver Shroud_ comic falling to one side of her in a flutter of paper.

“Oh my God!” she gasps as Johnny set Deacon on his bunk. “What the fuck happened?!”

“Mammy,” Johnny replies. “You know where his locker is?”

Georgie jumps down with a nod. 

“Get his stimpaks.”

She darts the lockers, yanks open the third door from the right, and starting digging through the few items that Deacon keeps in his locker.

“Why the hell isn’t he with Bones?” she demands.

“He was, but the sonvabitch won’t treat him,” Johnny snaps as he starts pulling Deacon’s jacket off. He’s whimpering in pain, but doing everything he can to expedite matters. Unfortunately, that’s not much.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Just find the fuckin’ stimpaks, Georgie, and shut the hell up.”

She makes a noise of anger and frustration, that may be directed at Johnny, and digs through Deacon’s things again.

“I can’t fucking find them,” she says. “They should be here; I’ve seen them. Fuck.” Georgie sits back on her haunches. “That asshole,” she mutters and moves to her own locker. “I’ve got a couple of my own and a syringe of Med-X I was keepin’ for an emergency.”

“I’d say this fuckin’ qualifies, don’t you?” Johnny replies with a growl and pulls Deacon’s tattered shirt up. He might have yelped in pain had he the strength.

She comes back with a couple stimpaks and the Med-X. “Oh God…” she gasps.

Deacon’s a bloody mess. His arms and neck are wet with it, his jeans are soaked at the back; it’s in his hair and trailing slightly down the plains of his chest from his time slung over Power Armour Frank’s shoulders. He lies down on his stomach on the bed and is grateful he can’t see the marks on his back. If Georgie’s noise of horror is anything to go by, is must be awful. 

“How much blood has he lost?” she asks. 

“A lot,” Johnny replies.

Georgie sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m going to give you a shot of Med-X, okay?” 

“Half,” Deacon says, voice a hoarse whisper. “Only half.” He’s really unable to handle this level of pain right now, and as much as he despises the stuff, he needs some Med-X. 

She looks at him for a moment, then nods. The prick of the needle is hardly felt in face of everything else, but it doesn’t take long for the Med-X to dull the roaring pain of his slashes into something more acceptable. It doesn’t take the pain completely away, too many nerves are firing right now for a half-dose to properly handle, but he can’t tolerate any more than that. He hopes, that since the pain is still there, albeit subdued, his brain won’t get all mushy on him and start that hallucination bullshit. 

Deacon closes his eyes against the shifting, swirling colours that begins to slide over his vision. He feels the pressure of a needle poke in his upper, then lower back. The pain begins to recede completely and so Deacon assumes that the stim is doing its job. 

“Give him the other one,” Johnny says; his voice sounds very far away.

“No. You said he’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s shivering. Dane’s in shock, I can’t,” Georgie replies. “Help me get him out of his pants, he reeks.”

Deacon starts giggling. How come every time he gets a shot of Med-X, people want to strip him naked?

“Dane, I need you to sit up,” Georgie says as she tugs on his arm. Deacon shifts on to his side and opens his eyes. He immediately closes them again against the swirling room, keeping them closed as he sits up. “Get his boots off, please,” she says to Johnny.

He feels a pair of hands on his belt and is surprised. Deacon opens his eyes again and sees Georgie working his pants open. He looks past her and sees Johnny tugging his boots off. There’s a flicker of something further in the room and Deacon looks up. 

Nick flicks the lid closed on his lighter with a sharp _click_.

Deacon can’t help the delighted smile that lights his face, even as part of his Med-X soaked brain tells him that this is a hallucination. “Nick!”

Georgie looks up from her task. “What?”

_’Hey, kid. What the hell happened to you?’_

“Ignore him,” Johnny says, “Let’s get this done so we can get him some fuckin’ blankets.”

“Deathclaw named Mammy,” Deacon replies. “Wanna see?”

_’Not really,’ Nick replies as he exhales a curl of smoke, ‘Never did like seein’ you hurt.’_

“No,” Georgie snaps, “I already have. Lie down.”

Deacon lies back, dimly aware that being on his back should hurt, but doesn’t. They yank Deacon’s pants down, careful to keep his underwear in place, and then Georgie takes the whole bundle of his pants, shredded shirt and jacket and tosses them out in the hall. While she does that, Nick sits at the end of his bed. 

_’You almost done in this place?’ Nick asks. ‘Miss havin’ ya around, you know.’_

Deacon shakes his head and pulls himself upright. “Not yet.”

It’s starting to get hard to move around. He’s tried and weak. Nick’s hand curls around his arm and helps him up; he can feel the cool metal of Nick’s exposed hand on his skin. He knows he shouldn’t because he can’t feel _anything_ right now, but his brain his happy to supply him with hallucinated sensations. 

In the background, Johnny and Georgie are talking, but it’s just noise to Deacon. He shuffles back up to his pillow on the orders of Nick and a blanket is draped over him, then another. 

“Am I cold?” he asks Nick. Deacon has to pull the blankets back from his face to see him.

 _Nick nods; more smoke slips out his mouth and through the hole in his cheek._ Deacon wishes he could smell it. _’You’re shiverin’, kid.’_

Georgie must have heard ‘I’m cold,’ because another blanket it thrown on top of him. He pulls that one back from his face too. 

“Don’t go,” he tells Nick. 

“Of course not,” Georgie replies as she sits on his bed, blocking his view of Nick. 

Deacon looks at her, confused for a moment as to why she’s answering. Behind her, Nick moves to sit against the wall at the back of the bed. 

_’I’m not goin’ anywhere, kid,’ Nick says as he settles himself against the wall. ‘I’m not the runnin’ away type; that’s you.’_

As Georgie tucks the blankets around him and sleeps starts to pull heavily on him, Deacon’s last thought is mournful agreement with Nick. 

\- - - - -

The headache to end all headaches wakes Deacon some time later, how much later though, he has no idea. There are no clocks in the main bunk house and the place is perpetually dark save for the lanterns that light it. He shifts slightly because his shoulder is aching where he lying on it, but that causes pain to lance through his back and he aborts the movement with a hiss. 

There’s shifting mass next to him of blankets and Deacon realizes that the warmth that had been pressing against his front wasn’t just captured body heat warming the blankets, but rather another person. He stares in some surprise as Georgie’s head pops out of the covers. 

She blinks blearily at him and then smiles slightly. “Oh good,” she mutters. “I was afraid I’d wake up next to a corpse. You were about as cold as one when I crawled in here.”

“Glad I could oblige.” 

Deacon’s mouth answers long before his brain processes her words. It’s a good thing his mouth can operate on its own, because his brain is going to be down for servicing for the next little while.

Georgie smirks. “How’s your back?”

“Awful,” he whispers. “My head’s worse, though.”

“I’ll grab those painkillers of yours, then.” Georgie carefully shifts out of Deacon’s bed, making sure not to cause too much movement. It still jars him anyways, and he clamps down on the noise of pain. She didn’t do it on purpose.

It’s either really late, or really early because Georgie is in her sleeping clothes. The braid she normally keeps her light-coloured hair in is a frazzled mess. She opens Deacon’s locker, grabs his painkillers from the shelf and disappears out the door to grab some water. While she’s gone, Deacon shifts up on his one arm. It causes burning pain to screech across his back and his head to swim, but he has to up semi-upright for the water and meds.

Georgie appears again after a few moments and kneels next to the bed. She sets the can of water down and Deacon holds out his hand for the pills. 

“How many?” she asks as she pops the top.

“All of them,” Deacon replies, voice hoarse and low. 

She chuckles quietly and shakes four into his hand. “That’ll do,” she says and hands him the opened can.

He takes the can and swallows the pills gratefully. He’s not sure four are going to make a real dent in his pain, but he supposes he shouldn’t add liver failure to his list of woes. He drinks half the can in a few short gulps and then hands it back to Georgie, least he be temped to down the whole thing. 

“I’ll give then sometime to work and come back with some hot water. You’re still covered in blood and I need to wrap those claw marks until you’re able to handle another stim,” she says and stands. “I also see about getting you something to eat. You’re probably starving.”

“I’m not,” he replies.

Georgie gives him an incredulous look from where she’s scrounging together some clothes. “It’s been over twelve hours since you zonked out; you need something to eat. I’m starving, I had to eat all my Potato Crisps.”

“Alright,” Deacon says, he can’t be bothered to argue and she’s right, he should eat something.

She leaves to get changed and Deacon falls into a doze. He is woken after seems like only a moment to find Georgie kneeling at his bed, looking much more put together than the last time he saw her. She’s holding a mug of something hot and spicy smelling. 

“I don’t think they were happy about me skimming a bunch of broth off today’s lunch, but screw ‘em,” she says with a laugh.

He sits up, more easily than before now that his back isn’t screaming as loudly and his head isn’t pounding so hard. He takes the cup and sips the broth as Georgie bustles about the room, collecting various scraps of cloth she’s washed and getting out her jar of paste. Then, she disappears out of the room again. 

Georgie pokes and prods him for an hour more. Making him get up, change out of his bloodied underwear into some soft pants. She cleans the blood from his back, arms, head, and chest -kindly letting him worry the blood lower than that. Then, she dresses his wounds with her paste (the glowing fungus in it prevents decomposition of it for several months, so even though the plants that make it are no longer available, she still has plenty on hand), hopefully in a few days he’ll be strong enough for another stim, cause wandering around with this stuff on his back is going to suck. 

He could probably get better quicker if he was in better physical condition, but Deacon’s lost so much weight lately that he’s going to be paying for it now.

He’s bed ridden for a several days, only really strong enough to make a trip down to get food once a day, and even that taxes him a little too much. He sleeps a lot, but not well. Nightmares don’t leave him alone, but he’s not interested in chemical means of chasing them away. He occupies what little time he is awake with taking up practicing reloading his rifle again. He’s slow at first, the rifle is heavy and it’s pulling on his delicate back muscles. 

Things dramatically improve once he gets another stimpak. He gets his speed back up to where it was before he started fighting (Johnny’s pulled him out of the fights until further notice. He suspects this is retaliation for Savage Zac instructing Bones not to treat him and not just because he's injured. He’ll have this gang pulled apart yet). Later, he also sets up a wooden board at the end of the hall -that Georgie made Alan and Robin carry after she caught Deacon trying to haul it into the main bunk house- for practicing knife throwing. 

She’s as demanding as Ellie when it comes to certain things and despite both Alan and Robin being of higher rank than her in The Claws, they jump to do her bidding - or perhaps, they jumped help him; he tends to have the effect on people. Deacon ends up showing them all how to properly throw a knife (with varying success), and Deacon likes to think he’s a better teacher than Jericho. All that man would say was: “You’re fuckin’ doin’ it wrong, kid.” Or “Christ, you couldn’t hit the broad side of a fuckin’ barn!” 

Granted, it’s not exactly a high bar.

Georgie keeps poking food in him. It seems like every time he turns around, there she is with something else for him to eat and she won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. It’s like she’s taken his current slim size as a personal affront and aims to correct it. He hardly eats half of what she brings, but at least he is eating. He does want to, even if her demanding it is making him balk simply because it _is_ a demand. 

November ends and December flies by. He’s allowed to work with Garrett again on the agreement that gets back into fighting shape. Though the stimpak has stitched the muscles and skin back together, they are weakened from being torn apart and he has to carefully up his training and exercise. This agreement comes through Johnny on behalf of Savage Zac, whom Deacon hasn’t seen up close and personal since getting maimed by Mammy.

There’s a few arena fights in December and one initiate actually survives. The newest Claw ends up taking residence in with Deacon and company since they have one free bed just waiting for someone to occupy it. The man has an accent like Colin Moriarty had and Deacon will admit to unfairly judging the man because of it -he’s probably not all that good of a guy anyways, if he’s here. Deacon has no idea what his name is; they were introduced, but the moment he started talking Deacon was lost in remembering Moriarty and his terrible treated of Gob and Nova, and he forgot it. He can’t be bother with a nickname and Deacon just calls him whats-his-face aloud and to himself. 

Aside from the initiation fights, Johnny takes to arranging synth death-fights in January. There’s been an influx of synths (that’s what they’re told anyways) into Jamaica Plans in the last couple of weeks as Savage Zac has been sending out hunting parties to scour the southern half of the Commonwealth. Deacon can’t imagine that all of them are synths because it would mean that The Railroad has seriously underestimated The Instititute -which, he grants, is entirely possible.

He makes a trip in to see Glory to talk about how they might disrupt these raiding parties and she tells him that he’s still looking rough, but better than before and demands to see his deathclaw scars. After discussing the situation with Captain Garvey, they agree that the Minutemen need to be the ones to watch for these parties. Also, since The Claws are disrupting Railroad routes and activities, Deacon suggests that _Glory_ tell The Switchboard to start assigning a few heavies to ‘stumble’ upon these Minutemen patrols and lend aid in the form of mercs or militia. 

The Captain agrees to share the patrol routes and schedules of the Minutemen to makes this happen, under the understanding that if the Gunners got a hold of this information, it would get a lot of good men and women killed. Deacon says that Glory should give the information out piecemeal to the safehouses that will be lending their heavies so no one place will have all the information at once. In a manner similar to what The Railroad tries to do with lower agents and tourists. Glory rolls her eyes, but agrees and Deacon feels like they need a ‘go team’ chant of some kind since this is probably the most productive meeting he’s ever been apart of. 

The number of ‘synths’ being captured and brought back to Jamaica Plains lessens considerably by the end of January, but parties are still being sent out. Ostensibly to continue to ‘rid the ‘Wealth of synths’, but Deacon suspects that Savage Zac has another motivation.

There’s been talk about the assault on University Point. Rumours mostly, and a general sense of impatience that they haven’t already made their move. Deacon suspects this is due to the Minutemen presence just under the overpass. There may not be very many of them, but they have the superior position, being both uphill from Jamaica Plains and being in control of the overpass. He’s not sure what kind of intel The Claws have on the Minutemen’s weapons, but a sniper could so some serious damage from that watch position on top of the overpass.

He can only image the kind of hell they’ll rain down on The Deathclaws with a Fat-Man launcher from that position. Assuming they find one, of course. 

Savage Zac is smart, and he doubts the man will try and take University Point without first distracting the Minutemen. No. The better plan would be to try and gain a position somewhere else in the Commonwealth, somewhere where the Minutemen don’t have a presence, and use that to bolster your base before you tried to take University Point. That way you could attack from two positions. 

Diamond City is what he’d pick. 

Goodneighbour is in a better position in the ‘Wealth, but that town is full of mercs, ex-raiders, drifters, chem users, and all kinds of miscellaneous hardened Wasters who all have a grudge and a gun. Trying to take that place would be like trying to take down a rabid, radiation-crazed yao guai. The Claws might succeed, but if they did, their numbers would be incredibly diminished and they would likely have to wipe the entire town out. 

Savage Zac isn’t looking to empty the Commonwealth of it’s people. After all, what’s a king without subjects?

Diamond City is the better bet. More civilized and easier to take if The Claws previous demonstration outside the city is anything to go by. Sure, most of the people in Diamond City own a gun, but they rely on the DCS to watch over them. They’re insulated and complacent. Yeah, if it was Deacon calling the shots (and he was a synth-hating, egomaniacal, power-hungry, skinny, little fuck) he’d take the fight to Diamond City. 

He hasn’t been able to see Glory for a couple of weeks now, so he’ll have to pass word through Garvey that The Railroad should be watching the roads around Diamond City for anyone suspicious passing into the place. When he does speak with the Captain, Garvey tells Deacon he’ll talk with Colonel Hollis try and get a few Minutemen patrols up around Diamond City as well. 

Deacon has yet to be sent on a ‘synth patrol’ (Georgie has gone on two and each time she comes back a little flintier and greyer. Which isn’t a good look on her, she’s already so fair that she’s practically see-through), and figures there are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, he can’t be trusted with him ‘sleeping’ with a Minuteman (he has stressed to Garvey that the increased patrols need to be a reaction to The Deathclaws taking people and not his intel. Deacon has also given a few scraps of intel to The Deathclaws to help them avoid a few Minutemen patrols, but only enough to make it seem like he overheard the conversation). 

Secondly, Savage Zac doesn’t want to deprived of his fights again. Not that Deacon is a fantastic fighter or anything. He only wins about half the time, but if there’s one thing Deacon can do, it's put on a Goddamn show. His songs usually get the entire crowd singing, which is a bit unnerving to his opponent. Also, he’s a lot slimmer than every other fighter, so has to be creative and make their weight work against them to win; it’s more exciting that two guys beating one another into submission even if he doesn’t always win. 

He does his best to keep his face out of the fray because since his fight with Hairy his one cheek hasn’t healed quite right. He thinks that’s because of the implant on that side. Vera is going to have her work cut out for her when he returns for a new face. 

Lastly, Bloody Garrett isn’t interested in releasing Deacon for a week long excursion into the Commonwealth. He had a temporary hand to help him in the workshop, but from what Deacon understands, it did not go well. Garrett had a list as long as his arm for Deacon to do once he was allowed to return to work for Garrett. Ash isn’t glad to see him, however, and he feels like he’s back to square one concerning her. 

It’s near the end of February when Deacon’s suspicions about Diamond City are confirmed.

He’s in the workshop, alone -Garrett and Ash have gone to talk with Savage Zac. Deacon’s using a pair of heavy duty tin-snips to cut the barbed wire off of the baseball bat he won after surviving the arena. He’s been meaning to do it for months now, but there never seems to be enough time, or they are more important things to do. He doesn’t like the barbed wire, a baseball bat is deadly enough in of itself, and he’s wants to know what’s underneath it all. 

The wire springs back somewhat as the tension is released on it, but Deacon has to put on a pair of heavy gloves to pry of the barbed wire from where is has embedded itself in the wood. Just as he gets the wire off and throws it in the heap of scrap metal to melted, Garrett and Ash reappear in the workshop, arguing.

“Zac is fucking losing it! He wants us to take this idiot-” Ash wildly gestures toward Deacon “-with us to go get those two morons who managed to pissed off an entire fucking town in a week!” she growls and grabs a wrench from her workbench, throwing it across the room. It makes a dent in the drywall before hitting the concrete floor with a loud metallic ring. 

There’s a lot of dents in the drywall in this place.

“Not just Dane, Ash,” Garrett replies, a frown on his face. Well, Deacon thinks it’s a frown, hard to tell with all that facial hair. “We’re to take one other.”

“We shouldn’t be fucking going at all! Not with those Minutemen fucks staring down at our camp. They got themselves caught, they can rot for all I care.”

Garrett crosses his thick arms and prepares to weather Ash’s rage. It’s not the first time he’s had to bear the brunt of her anger. Deacon discards the heavy gloves and picks up the bat. He might need it in case she decides to throw more things. 

“Zac wouldn’t send us if he thought it wasn’t worth it. He already explained why it had to be us. You wouldn’t be half as mad about this if he hadn’t made that crack about you and Johnny-”

Ash whirls on Garrett, hammer in hand. “As if Johnny was ever interested in him,” Ash snaps. “I swear if he doesn’t stop talking about Johnny like that, I’ll gouge his eyes out. How pretty will his fucking face be then? Hmm?” she throws the hammer at Savage Zac’s power armour and it makes a sizable dent in the chest piece.

“You know you’ll have to bang that out before he sees it.”

“Fuck you,” she snarls at Garrett. “And fuck him.” She turns to Deacon. “Go pack your fucking shit, we’re leaving for Diamond City.”

Deacon turns and starts out of the shop, not wanting to have her ire directed at him. He hasn’t seen her this angry before. Garrett stops him at the door. 

“Grab a friend while you’re there. I’m gonna have my hands full with this.”

Behind them Ash is still raging and Deacon nods.

He ‘grabs’ Robin -as evidence by his backwards armband. It must be on purpose, Deacon’s never seen it any other way. The man is the only one home in the house he shares with Alan, Yin, and Yang when Deacon dropped by. Deacon thinks Alan is out on a raid right now, and Yin and Yang are the gang’s main recruiters so they are out of camp more often than they are in it. Right now, they’re out. He considered grabbing Georgie, but if this is another raiding expedition, or something like it, he’d rather not subject her to it. 

She’s not even in their room when Deacon returns to pack a bag, so it’s a moot point. He writes her a quick note and tells her to keep an eye on his bat for him. Georgie told Johnny the day he was maimed that Hairy had been hiding his things and had hidden his stimpaks, which is way Georgie has to use one of hers. He doesn’t know what Johnny said, but Georgie described it as: “He put the fear of God into Warren and it was awesome!”. 

He doesn’t know how long they are going for, but Diamond City is a good ten hours from here and it’s already mid-morning so they’ll have to make camp for one night at least. He packs enough for a few days -that is to say, he packs all the clothing he has. Him and Robin hit up the church for dried food stores and water cans. They collect more than they think they’ll need, in case a radiation snow storm blows in and they have to take cover. 

When they return to the workshop, Garrett tosses them both a sleeping bag, and they head out, Ash leading the way. Her foul mood doesn’t seem to have improved at all and coupled with deathclaw gauntlet she wields, they decide to follow at a safe distance. Deacon in particular is not looking to relive that particular injury.

There’s a Minutemen patrol that hangs out around Fairline Hill Estates, and after a couple hours of walking, Deacon points out a way to avoid them. Which also lets them avoid Dayton house in the old Milton General Hospital; he’d hate for this party to get distracted by the prospect of synth hunting. Not that he can be sure that they aren’t already hunting synths and he’s had enough of that bullshit. If that’s what this is, he might end up being the sole survivor of an ‘ambush’.

They make camp for the night in a ruined building just off the road and set up a watch to keep an eye out for creatures and to keep the fire stoked. It’s damn cold out. While they’re eating their dried rations Garrett explains what they’re doing on this little excursion.

“Rescuing a pair of morons,” Ash grumbles from her perch next to the fire. The day’s walk has dampened her temper, but Deacon doubts she’ll be truly equable until they return to Jamaica Plains. Or, rather, as equable as she gets.

As it turns out, Yin and Yang have not been absent from the Deathclaw’s camp because they’ve been recruiting (though they probably do that without even thinking about it), they’ve been performing recon on Diamond City as per Savage Zac’s orders. Zac thought, falsely it would appear, that because of their friendly natures and outgoing attitudes they might better be able to insert themselves with in the city’s populace long enough to gather intel on guard numbers, rotation schedules, weak points in The Wall, etcetera. 

Deacon smirks when he hears this; apparently no one told The Deathclaws that getting in good with Diamond City takes more than a couple weeks and a friendly disposition. Besides, those two are too crass and brash for Diamond City’s more _refined_ sensibilities. He’s not surprised they brought the ire of the DCS down on them.

However, as Garrett continues to talk, Deacon realizes that it isn’t some drunken bar brawl or a refusal to pay a tab that’s gotten them in hot water. Yin and Yang killed a man, a man they figured was a synth. Deacon’s expression closes as wave of anger roars up. They killed a man in his city? In his Goddamned city?! Deacon takes a deep breath and releases it. Diamond City isn’t his, he has no claim on it, nor should be furious on its behalf. Garrett has no intel on whether or not the man was actually a synth (not that it matters), but the DCS have yet to decide on a course of action. Perhaps they don’t know either. 

Yin and Yang sent a missive from the ‘Piper Suite’ -Diamond City’s equivalent of ‘one phone call’- saying only that they’d been jailed for killing a synth, send help, yada, yada, yada. Savage Zac doesn’t seem all that concerned over them being in jail, but he does want the information they’ve collected, and the expertise of his armour and weapon’s experts to judge the structure and the weapons of Diamond City while they get the information. No one doubts that Yin and Yang will refuse to give up the information without a rescue and thus they are here. 

Ash ‘n Smoke starts talking about taking out every guard they see and storming the town, but Bloody Garrett talks her down to minimal violence. Deacon chimes in that if they start killing guards, Diamond City will react by doubling the number of guards they currently have and the information Yin and Yang will have collected will be largely useless. He hopes that they can avoid killing anyone for this, but if Ash starts killing guards for the fuck of it, he will side with the DCS and take these Claws down. He doesn’t know how he’ll explain it to Zac, but maybe he shouldn’t. The gang's leaders are so close to tearing one another apart, he just needs a little more time, time that he might not get if this goes south.

They arrive early in the afternoon the next day and split up for some recon of their own. They can’t make a move on the jail until dark anyways, and this gives Ash and Garrett an opportunity to check things out, for Robin to chat up Vadim, and Deacon to find Tom. All without their armbands, of course.

Deacon wants to talk to Tom for a few reasons. One, Tom’s a guard and Deacon needs away into the barracks that doesn’t involved being arrested or killing any DCS. Two, Tom will know more about the death of the ‘synth’ than Deacon currently does. Three, he doesn’t want Nick to see him like this, but if things go south and the DCS needs help, he can trust Tom to get Nick.

It’s cold out, so most of the Diamond City’s guards are wearing toques and scarves drawn up over their faces under their helmets and catcher masks, but Tom always wears a scrap of pink fabric from one of Ellie’s dresses that tore last summer on the railing in the Western Stands. A favour from a lady to her knight. Deacon images that he gets flack for it from the other guards, but in the time he’s known Tom, he’s never taken it off. Deacon wanders through Diamond City, trying to look like he’s got an objective away from where ever it is that he is currently, while looking for that scrap of pink. He’s beginning to think that this is Tom’s day off and he’s with Ellie somewhere, when he spots a flash of pink past the fallow ground of last years crops, near the city’s meeting area.

Deacon darts across the fallow ground, following the path that others have made there, his boots crunching in the light snow, and heads behind the stage. He calls out to Tom across the short distance, and gestures wildly for him to join Deacon. Tom hesitates, his body language wary, but his duty as a guard means he has to investigate, even if it's just some half-crazed drunk. At least, that’s what he images he looks like. 

“Need somethin’?” Tom asks, voice muffled by his scarf. His eyes take Deacon in, trying to decide if because Deacon knows his name they’ve met somewhere before. 

“Yeah. A lot of somethings actually, but I’ll settle for your uniform to begin with,” Deacon says with a grin.

Tom backs up slightly, his pipe rifle shifting up. Deacon throws up his hands. 

“Did I mention you’re gonna to give it to me of your own free will? No shootin’ required.”

Tom’s eyes narrow. “Yeah? Howya figure that?”

“For a few different reasons, but here’s one that should get you to lower that rifle: Ellie ever tell you about Rhett’s secret identity?”

This is a gamble. He’s not sure how forthcoming Ellie has been on the subject of Deacon and The Railroad. It might just be his luck that she doesn’t tell Tom everything. 

“Whatda you care?”

Playing his card close to his chest. Smart. Of course, Ellie wouldn’t put up with anything less. 

“Because I have a _personal_ interest in it. Also, could you tell me how Nick’s treatin’ my Maltese Falcon? I’m not entirely sure he’s giving it all the love it needs.”

Tom looks at him for a split second, like he’s trying to see Deacon under his current face, then he pulls down his scarf. “Deacon? That you?”

Deacon pinches his arm. “Yeah, that feels like me. Must be me.”

“What the hell are you doin’ in Diamond City? Ellie said you weren’t comin’ back for a long while. Jesus, you lookin’ pretty rough these days, man. And what did you do to your face?”

“Both excellent questions. The latter is a long story that I don’t have time to get into, the former however, you can help me with.”

“With my uniform? That’s a tall order, man. I can’t just go around giving my gear up. Surely you understand.”

“Oh, I do, probably for all the reasons I’m going state, but hopefully by the end you’ll see it my way,” Deacon says and begins explaining why he’s here -leaving out that it’s The Deathclaws specifically and simply saying that a group Deacon’s infiltrated wants to take over Diamond City. They sent two scouts that are currently in DCS's lockup, and that three others are here (excluding Deacon) to continue the recon and bust the first two out. When Tom questions why Deacon has to bust them out, when they should just arrest all of the scouts, Deacon explains that he needs to maintain his cover for a little longer so that he can ultimately take down the whole group in one fell swoop -and Deacon means this in the original sense of the Bard: ferociously and wickedly all at once. 

Tom whistles. “Jeez, that R.R. group of yours sure got you runnin’ all over the ‘Wealth for them, don’t they? First us, now this. You’re not The Silver Shroud by night too, right?”

Deacon smirks. “If I was, do you think I’d tell you?” He pulls up his thick scarf from where it’s tucked around his neck and lowers his voice to a rumble. “ _Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shroud knows…_ ”

Tom starts laughing, but after a moment, he sobers. “Nicky’s been pretty down since ya left, ya know? It feels like he don’t laugh no more. It doesn’t seem right you and me gettin’ to laugh now.”

“You can’t tell Nick you’ve seen me, okay? Not unless you have to. Dire straights only,” Deacon stresses in the same moment he realizes he said that same words to Nick last year. He shakes it off. “If we do this right, no one will be any wiser and no guards will get killed. I swear I’ll do everything to prevent that.”

“Okay,” Tom says after a moment, “I’m gonna trust you on this. I’ll leave my kit for you to grab tonight. Danny’s on gate shift tonight, I’ll leave it with him. Just go to the old ticket office.”

“Anything I should say to Danny so he doesn’t try and shoot me?” Deacon asks with no little amusement.

“Uh...yeah. Tell ‘im you’re ‘The Silver Shroud’," Tom replies with a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was getting to be 19,000 words and I’m still not finished, so I decided to cut it into two parts. Part 2 will be posted in a couple of days and that will be the end of The Claws. 
> 
> Happy belated Independence Day to my American readers! Also, to my fellow Canadians, Happy super-belated Canada Day!
> 
> So I’ve spent the last couple of weeks listening to Old Time Radio broadcasts of The Shadow, as voiced by Orson Wells, because according to the wiki, The Silver Shroud may be be based on him. I googled and read up on him and in my opinion, The Shadow _is_ The Silver Shroud. They don’t have the same powers, but they’re so similar in everything else. When Deacon says: _’Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shroud knows.’_ That’s a Shadow line.


	13. Part 2 - Death has come for you evil-doer, and I'm its Shroud!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _O, from this time forth,_   
>  _my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!_
> 
> _-Hamlet (4.4.65-6)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating has gone up because there is some explicit dubious consent in this chapter. I have not updated the tags for rape, because Deacon gets himself into the situation knowing full well what is going to happen and wanting to use it to his advantage. However, if dubious consent is triggering/unpleasant/squicky for you, please skip the part where **Deacon goes to visit Savage Zac** and just assume he died in an unpleasant fashion.

Ash, Garrett, Robin, and Deacon meet up again outside the city. They find a place to camp in an old apartment building, in a suite that has an old wood fireplace. They scrounge wooden furniture from a few other suites and build a fire that soon has the space heated. Deacon fills the group in on how he’s gotten his hands on a DCS uniform via 'bribery' and that will be their ticket into the lockup tonight. They can knock out a few guards and take Yin and Yang without a fuss, then Deacon can help them avoid patrolling DCS guards. They should get out of the city with little issues. 

Ash still favours killing every guard they come across, but Garrett likes Deacon’s plan -he doesn’t want to get killed over someone else’s fuck up. Robin chimes in after, that word around town is that the man Yin and Yang killed was not, in fact, a synth, so it’s unlikely that they’ll just get set free. A lot of people in town want them dead for killing one of their own. This is pretty much what Tom told Deacon, and he had to assure the man that Yin and Yang were going to get everything and more that was coming to them. Deacon promised to send a few Minutemen up to Diamond City to tell the town exactly what kind of Commonwealth justice was wreaked on those two. 

This isn’t going to make the DCS look all that great, but hopefully, Tom will be able to pass it off as a single traitor within their midst and not a combined failing of the guards. If he can pass it off as that, Deacon hopes that Diamond City will take infiltrators and kidnappings more seriously, Institute and others alike, because that town needs to stop living a dream. This is going to get worse before it gets better and the better prepared they are for that, the more likely Diamond City will still be around by the time The Institute falls. 

The group passes the rest of the afternoon by taking turns watching the fire and having short naps so they are ready and awake to take on this night's mission. Night comes quickly and they ready themselves before heading into Diamond City. On Garrett’s suggestion, they do not enter the city as a group; Ash and Garret go in together, with Robin after several minutes, and Deacon several more after that. Hopefully, to the guards on duty, it will seem like they were out scaving and are on their way back in to sleep and sell the goods.

Deacon veers over to the old ticket stand when he’s sure that the outside door guard it more interested in warming himself by the barrel fire than he is in where Deacon is going to. 

Danny is sitting the booth, a small fire burning beside him as he monitors the people coming in past the first guard. Diamond City’s gate is closed at night at midnight and opens again in the morning at eight. If anyone comes when the gate is shut, it’s Danny’s duty, as well as whoever is on shift outside the gate to decide whether or not they get in. Not a lot of people travel that late at night, so it doesn’t happen often, but it does occasionally. More so in the summer, though, when the nights are warm. 

It’s just after eleven o’clock now, according to the clock that’s hanging behind Danny, so they’ll have to be quick to get in and get back out again before the gate shuts. Deacon leans against the counter of the ticket stand with a smile. Danny’s wearing a toque, but not his catcher’s mask, his red eyebrows matching the red of his cheeks. 

“Help you with something?” Danny asks. 

“Well, I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my silver sub-machine gun, but if I rumble convincingly, might you take me for The Silver Shroud?”

Danny gives him a once over, wearing a small smirk. “Tom said you’d be by, Rhett. Didn’t think I’d see you again, but considering your face is all weird, I guess I haven’t really.”

Deacon chuckles. “Price of being a spy,” he says and Danny nods. He points out where Tom stashed his gear. 

Deacon changes quickly, the cold harsh on his skin. He shoves his gear in his backpack, including his tool belt (a little too conspicuous if he’s going to pretend to be a DCS guard), straps on his knife, fills his pockets with .44 rounds -just in case- throws his rifle over his shoulder, and leaves his pack with Danny. He’ll retrieve it on the way out, and hopefully, have time to change quickly and leave Tom’s kit behind. If not…well, he’ll have to find a caravan in University Point, but he’d hate for Tom to bare the brunt of the rage in Diamond City if he doesn’t get his equipment back. 

Deacon meets up with the other three in the alley around the barracks to let them know that he’s ready to go. He takes Garrett with him while Ash and Robin follow in the shadows. At the entrance to the barracks, a guard nods to Deacon and asks what Garrett has done to deserve the ‘Piper Suite’.

“Got into a bar brawl,” Deacon replies, voice a scratchy rumble. “Vadim thought it was funny; Yefim...not so much.” He shrugs as if to imply that Garrett is here because Yefim asked the guards to take him to dry out.

The guard laughs, “That about sums those two up. The suites getting’ a bit full, but we can handle one more if it's just for a night.”

“I figured,” Deacon says and moves back toward the door, shoving Garrett forward. 

When he’s behind the guard, Deacon whirls and knocks the man’s helmet off. The guard turns, confused and angry. Garrett throws one massive fist into the guard’s temple and he collapses, out cold. Garrett’s eyes slide toward Deacon; he doesn’t say anything, but Deacon suddenly feels like he gave up more in that short conversation with the guard than he has in the last several months working with Garrett. The moment is interrupted by Ash and Robin appearing at the barrack’s door and Deacon is grateful for it. 

“We’d better move him out of sight,” Garrett says, and he and Robin grab the guard under his arms as Deacon opens the door to the barracks. 

There’s a chair in the hallway, next to a table, and they prop the guard in it while Deacon moves on ahead to distract the few guards on watch duty. It’s night, so there are only two. Yin and Yang are snoring in the cell. Deacon nods to the one closest to the door and moves forward until he’s behind the one closest to the cell, acting like he’s about to go by and to bed.

Ash storms in from the hall, a snarl on her lips, but thankfully, she’s quiet. Like they need the guards already asleep to wake and for this to become a full blown battle. The guard in front of Deacon stands in surprise as she swipes at the other guard’s head, the claws of her gauntlet spinning the helmet sideways as he sprawls on the ground. Deacon wraps an arm around the other guard’s neck and holds tight so he’s unable to call out while shoving his helmet off with his other hand. 

Garrett helps Ash -well, makes sure she doesn’t kill the man, and Robin socks the guard Deacon’s holding with the butt of his revolver. Both men go silent. Deacon picks through the pockets of the guard on the ground at his feet and comes up with the key to the jail cell. He heads over to the door, but Ash shoves him out of the way and takes the key. Deacon backs up, a frown falling over his face, but it’s gone quickly. If she catches him looking like that, there will be hell and he doesn’t need a fight right now.

Ash yanks the door open and pulls both Yin and Yang out of their cots. They land with a heavy _thud_ on the floor. There’s mumbled noises of protests until they see it’s Ash that's standing over them and they go wide-eyed and silent. 

“That’s right you fuckheads,” she hisses, “You better stay quiet or I’ll rip those fucking tongues right out of your mouths. Now get up and get moving before I decide your information isn’t worth the fucking trouble.”

Yin and Yang scramble to their feet. Deacon smirks and beside him, Robin snorts slightly in laughter. 

“Let’s go,” Garrett says from the hallway entrance.

Deacon heads out the barrack's door first, in case there’s any guards that have decided to return, but the coast is clear and the group continues out. Deacon leads them through the alleys of Diamond City, avoiding the market and the better-trod paths to the front gate. As they pass into the light that bathes the ramp to the exit, a pair of guards start descending from the ramp to the Upper-stands. Deacon spies them too late and they give a startled cry when they see Yin and Yang.

“Fuck,” Deacon snarls and tells the group to get up the ramp and out of the city. 

Yin and Yang start running up the ramp, Robin on their tales, but Ash steps up next to Deacon, a wild grin on her face. 

“Oh yes. Now, this is more like it. I hate that sneaking around bullshit. Bring it you pussbags!” she shouts this last sentence and starts to charge for the guards, but Garrett wraps one large hand around her arm bringing her to an abrupt halt and drags her away from the guards.

They run up the ramp, following on the heels of the others, bullets bouncing after them. Deacon darts into the ticket both to get his pack, he tells Danny, who starts at his sudden appearance, to stay out of the fight. 

“You know I can’t if they start shooting at you,” Danny replies.

Deacon growls and Danny shifts backward. “Just don’t die,” he snaps as rushes out the main gate. 

He stumbles upon a bloodied guard with huge gashes torn through his padding and down into his chest. Ash looks up, blood speckling her clothing. Deacon’s face goes stony and Robin appears at his side, dragging him away from the shouting that has followed them out. They run across the Diamond City’s outer courtyard, Deacon giving Sammy Swatter an apologetic look as they run by. 

The bullets are striking too close to home for comfort and the group dives behind two of the barrier walls that separate the courtyard from the streets of Boston. Deacon, Ash, and Robin behind one, and Garret, Yin, and Yang, behind the other. The bullets stop for a moment, and the group chances a look out. 

There are a few guards on Wall duty that are joining the ones that are coming from the inside of the city. Before long, they’ll have the whole of the DCS guards upon them. Deacon swears again, this is exactly the kind of shit he was trying to avoid. Garrett dashes across the street, a few bullets are fired in his direction, but he makes it to them unscathed. 

“We need a distraction,” Garrett says and Robin nods his agreement. 

“Oh, leave that to me,” Ash replies with a feral grin.

Garrett grabs her arm. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says. 

“Where’s the fun in that? You,” she looks at Deacon. “Make use of that rifle and pick off a few of these pussbags, yeah?”

Deacon nods, but thinks that Ash will probably be the one to end up with a bullet in her back.

“The rest of you, make sure those morons get back to camp.”

Garrett gives Ash one last look before he motions for Yin and Yang to start up the road. Ash runs out into the courtyard, howling, and Garret and Robin start up the street after their charges. Deacon hoists his rifle off his back and starts to line up a shot when a loud _crack_ echoes through the space. 

Deacon’s stomach drops to his feet; he _knows_ that sound. He’d know it anywhere. 

Ash pauses momentarily in her charge, even the DCS guards are looking around, trying to find the source or the target of that shot. Deacon glances behind him and sees that Yang has fallen on the pavement, still. Yin is being pulled by Garrett and Robin who are trying to get him to run. Deacon turns back to the situation at hand and spots Nick near the front gates of the city. Only his hand cannon makes _that_ sound. 

Deacon lines up a few shots, taking aim at the areas in front of the guards, trying not to hit them, but forcing them into cover. Ash is taunting them with words disparaging their masculinity and Deacon redoubles his efforts to keep the men down because they are starting to play right into Ash’s hands. Deacon takes a couple shots at Nick’s feet, trying to force him into cover and keep him from being a larger target. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Ash gets it in her mind to go after him, but Deacon knows that it won’t be fucking pretty.

He has to pause to reload his rifle, fingers quick as sure as he chambers the rounds efficiently. Ahead, the DCS are moving forward now that the shooting has stopped for a moment. Deacon pushes himself to go faster, he can’t let any more of them die at Ash’s hands. He hopes that when Garrett and company are far enough off he can shout to Ash to lay off. As appealing as it is to put her down here, he can’t be sure of the reaction The Claws will have if he comes back alone. He’s not sure he’s ready to bring them down yet. They’re so close to tearing themselves apart, if he could just- a couple bullets hit the ground with a metallic _ting,_ breaking his train of thought, and Deacon curses. 

He glances down, automatically trying to find them even though it’s dark when there’s a muffled scream ahead. His head snaps up. Ash has managed to impale a man who isn’t wearing DCS regalia on the end of her deathclaw gauntlet. _Who the hell?_ Deacon thinks as Nick shouts from his cover and takes a shot at Ash. The _crack_ of the pistol echoing off the surrounding buildings.

The shot catches her right in middle of her chest armour and she stumbles back a step as the man slips off her gauntlet, but it doesn’t put her down. Surely, Nick’s bullet should have pierced her armour but she seems largely unaffected. She shrieks and runs toward him. 

Deacon growls and lines up his own shot. He manages to catch her in the leg and she goes down, tripping as her leg buckles under her. Nick catches up with her and bashes her across the face with his gun. She spins with the force of it, but catches herself on the pavement with her hands; Deacon can see her tensing as Nick levels his gun at her and he dashes from cover, headless of the guards that might want to shoot him.

He knows that Nick hasn’t seen her tensing to move; he’s clearly too angry about the man she just killed. Time slows as Deacon runs across the courtyard and Ash springs from her position on the ground, seemingly heedless of the wound in her leg. She plants her shoulder in Nick’s gut, shoving him backward before she rises and slashes at him with her gauntlet; the movement is actually quite elegant and Deacon might have appreciated in other circumstances. 

The gauntlet is meant for Nick’s face, but he shifts slightly to the side and it catches him along the left side of his neck and down into his chest. He howls in pain, reeling back as Ash draws back for another swing. Deacon snarls -a sound that is pulled from the deepest, most primal parts of him-, discards his rifle and pulls out his knife. He catches Ash’s arm as it draws back, pins it awkwardly up and against her so she doesn’t have the leverage to get free, and digs his blade in her neck. It draws deep and blood rushes out against his hand. With his head tucked in next to hers, he hears a faint metallic screech as his blade finds her spine. 

Deacon releases her and she falls to her knees, one hand coming up to feel her neck. She looks surprised that everything is ending. He watches to make sure she’s dead. _Synthetic bitch,_ he thinks grimly, _no wonder you wouldn’t go down like a decent fucking human being._

From in front of him there is the sound of a pistol cocking and Deacon looks up. Nick has his gun pointed at Deacon; he slowly raises his hands, knife still clutched in one. Nick’s face is pinched tight in pain, but after a moment of staring at Deacon, realization dawns on his face. 

“You’re wearin’ his gear,” he says, voice low and broken. “You’re the one he said he was helpin’.”

Deacon’s about to launch into a spiel when Nick’s eyes slide to the man on the ground. Deacon follows his gaze and suddenly the world lurches to the side. 

It’s Tom. 

He stares uncomprehendingly at Tom’s still form for what seems like an age. Then, his feet carry him to the body. A few DCS guards raise their rifles again, but Deacon doesn’t even see them. He drops to his knees next to Tom; blood soaks the legs of the uniform as mist rises from the wounds Tom sustained as the heat leaves his body and condenses in the cold air.

 _Oh no,_ he thinks, _what have I done?_

“Oh, Ellie,” Deacon says, voice a hoarse, choked sob. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. So sorry.” He keeps repeating those last two words, as if in hopes that if he shows enough repentance Tom will somehow rise from the dead. 

Why is he still alive when the bodies of so many loved ones litter the road behind him? This, right here, is the reason why he wants to disappear into obscurity. Why he wants to rid of the Wanderer forever, so he can live far away from people so this _doesn’t. Keep. Happening!_

Behind him, shoes click on the stones of the courtyard and a hand is lain on his shoulder. Deacon glances over and sees Nick and he can’t handle it. He can’t deal with this and Nick trying to comfort him over a death that he brought to pass. 

“Don’t,” he says to Nick, voice thick with tears. “Just fucking don’t.”

“You didn’t know. Hell, you saved my life-”

Deacon stands, brushing off Nick’s hand. He pulls off his helmet and shoves it into Nick’s hands; eyes momentarily taking in the damage that Ash inflicted on him before turn away. 

He should have shot Ash when he had the chance, damn the consequences; he should've lead the group into a Minutemen ambush and limped back to camp as the sole survivor. Well, he’s done fucking around now. Deacon wraps his rage around him like a cloak. Despair will get him nowhere. If he’s going to destroy The Deathclaws, he’s going to need all the anger and hate he can muster. 

Deacon sheaths his knife and walks around Tom’s body. He picks up his rifle and heads back to the barrier wall to pick up his backpack. Nick trails after him, so much so that he bumps into him trying head out. Nick grabs his arm and Deacon looks up at him.

“I’ve seen that look before,” Nick says, “and nothin’ good’ll come of it. Don’t go and get yourself killed over this.”

Deacon stares at Nick, but he sees no recognition in Nick’s face. He doesn’t know he’s talking to Deacon. He feels an ache in his heart; Nick is this nice to strangers on the assurance of a friend. God, this world does not deserve Nick Valentine.

“Why not?” Deacon asks, keeping his voice low so Nick will have a harder time recognizing it. “I got him killed. Why not me? It should _be_ me.” He looks away. “It should’ve always been me.”

Nick makes to say something, but Deacon holds up a hand and pulls away. 

“Don’t follow me,” he says. “Don’t go lookin’ for vengeance either. That’s mine. Trust me, these assholes will get everything they deserve and more.”

Deacon starts out. If he moves fast he can get to Goodneighbour and then get back to Jamaica Plains by sundown tomorrow. 

Behind him, Nick’s voice follows clearly on the cold winter air. 

“But at what cost?”

\- - - - - 

Deacon works himself into a foam on the way the Goodneighbour. Boston’s streets are dangerous at night, and he can’t see in the dark, but there must be something about the aura of rage he’s currently radiating because he doesn’t hear a peep from ferals, raiders, or super mutants. 

It’s sometime after midnight when he arrives. The two guards on duty inside the door, shoot him weird looks for arriving at their town wearing a DCS guard kit. One starts to make a crack about it, but when Deacon looks at him, he quickly clams up. 

The stores in town are closed (no surprise), but as he passes in front of the entrance to The Third Rail, there are plenty of people still coming and going from the bar -there will be until the band calls it quits. Across the street, there’s a chem deal going down outside the Rexford Hotel. Why they’re doing it out in the cold Deacon doesn’t know; maybe that person is banned from stepping inside. 

There’s another Neighbourhood Watch guard walking the street just in front of The Memory Den and he stops to watch Deacon try the front door. It’s locked. Deacon growls in frustration, he does not have time to stand out here for a half hour and bang on the door until Amari or Irma come to answer. He swings his rifle down off his shoulder and shoots the lock.

Behind him The Neighbourhood Watch guard shouts at him, but Deacon ignores him as he shoves the door open. He bangs the door closed behind him and knows he doesn’t have long before The Neighbourhood Watch guard calls a few of his pals over and storms this place to shoot first and ask questions later. Deacon stalks through the main floor of The Memory Den, sparing the Loungers a single look before heading back, past the stage, to the stairs. 

He pauses for a moment at the top of the stairs to Amari’s lab, but he can’t hear her down there. He moves to the foot of the stairs that lead to the upper floor and bellows for Amari. Deacon’s not going to risk going upstairs to find her. He doesn’t imagine she sleeps with a gun under her pillow but Irma strikes him as the kind of woman who does. He doesn’t need to get shot while blindly checking the rooms for hers.

There’s a scuffling sound on the floor above, then the sounds of footsteps. Irma appears the top of the stairs with a rifle in her hands, pointed at Deacon. See. It’s a lever-action one, like his own; she seems to really enjoy rocking that ‘old western bordello’ look, what between her day outfits, that gun, and the feathered dressing gown she’s currently got on. Amari appears beside her a moment later, her lab coat wrapped around her pajamas. 

“You’d better start talkin’, sweetheart,” Irma says, voice rough with sleep. “Or I’m going to shoot you and not loose a single moment's rest over it.”

“Cute,” Deacon says and directs his attention to Amari. Irma frowns. “I need a runner sent to University Point, _tonight_. Tell Glory to meet me at the Minutemen camp tomorrow night. She needs to bring every heavy she’s got at Kilo.”

There’s a moment of silence and Irma and Amari look at one another. Deacon doesn't have time for this.

He points at himself. “Deacon,” he says, then points at the doctor. “Amari. Have we got that straightened out? ‘Cause I don’t have a lot of fuckin’ time here. I need a runner, _now_.” He’s slipped into Lone Wanderer mode now, and his tone brooks no argument. 

“Of course,” Amari replies, slightly taken aback. “There was an agent in today and I think he’s still at the Rexford Hotel. I'll go over right after I have a look at you; you’re covered in blood.” She starts down the stairs. 

“I’m fine. Go now because I’m leaving.” Deacon turns but pauses when he hears the commotion at the front door, allowing Amari to catch him by the arm. 

She starts pulling him away, toward the stairs that lead to her lab and looks to Irma. “Will you please deal with that?” she asks.

Irma sighs and starts down the stairs, propping her rifle on her shoulder. Deacon follows Amari because he should change into his normal gear and it would be much better to do it in the warmth of Amari’s lab instead of the cold air of a camp. Besides, Irma will probably have an easier time convincing the Neighbourhood Watch nothing is wrong without him standing there looking all pissed off. 

Downstairs, Amari starts pulling off the gear she can reach. Deacon bats her hands away.

“I’m not injured; it’s not my blood,” he says. 

Amari grabs his hands and turns them over. They’re caked with blood; some is Ash’s, some is Tom’s.

“What happened?” she asks, voice full of concern. “Why are you this far north? Why are you wearing Diamond City guard armour?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” he says, pulling away. Deacon starts shucking the armour. “I have to get moving. I need to-” he cuts himself off when Amari lays a gentle hand on his shoulder. Deacon starts to crack. 

“I got him killed,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m wearing his armour so he didn’t have it. What was he doing out there? Why did he charge her like that? If he’d just stayed back… If I hadn’t been so fucking _arrogant_ ; wanting to have anything just perfect before I took The Claws down. I should have taken them down weeks ago; why do I keep letting this happen?”

Deacon starts scrabbling at the remaining armour, he has to get it off. _Now._ If he spends one more moment in the armour of a dead man he might scream. He’s suddenly frantic to get everything off. His toque slides off his head and onto the floor as he pulls the leather padding of the under amour, and the blue shirt of the DCS guard over his head. Tom was a little broader than him through the shoulders, so both garments come off easy. 

He sits on the couch to pull his boots off so he can get at the pants -they’re short on him since he was taller than Tom, but fit otherwise since he’s so slender. He could probably fit into a pair of women’s jeans these days. Not a great endorsement of his eating habits, but there it is. If he ever runs out of clothing options he can always try a different gender. 

Suddenly, Amari’s warm hand is touching the scars along his back. “Oh, Deacon,” she whispers. “What have they done to you? What _we_ done to you?”

He’s seen the marks in the mirror; even with the second stimpak the scars are still swaths of pink and won’t be fully white and scared over for several more months.

“Don’t. Please don’t,” he says. If he breaks down now, he’ll never get through this. 

He needs his anger. It’s the only thing driving him right now and if Amari takes it with her soft hands and concerned looks, he’ll run from the Commonwealth and never return.

“Alright,” Amari says and steps back. 

Deacon finishes pulling off Tom’s uniform and quickly dresses in his own clothes, strapping all his gear back on again. When he looks at Amari, her face is full of calm concern and resolution. 

“I want you to come back,” she says, “When you’re done in University Point -I suspect that will be soon.”

He nods grimly, agreeing with the last statement, but challenges the first. “The only place I’m going to is a deep, dark hole in the ground far away from The Railroad and everything therein while I contemplate all the death that follows in my wake.”

Deacon makes to leave, but Amari blocks the door. He frowns. 

“While you should absolutely be pulled from active duty (if I thought I could stop you from returning to University Point right now, I would), I will not allow you wallow in pain and misery in some hole.” Deacon makes to interrupt, but Amari holds up a hand -it should be comical, her trying to tell him what to do while wearing her pajamas. It's not. “You've been alone and without help for too long and I will not sit by and let them run you into the ground, nor will I let you do it to yourself. When you're finished, you _will_ return here and we will work through these recent events.”

Deacon laughs harshly. “I am not about to be dictated to by you and I have already said that I will not be caught dead in one of those-” he gestures to the Loungers “-things. I meant every word. Now please excuse me, I have a settlement to raze and vengeance to wreak.”

Deacon steps by Amari and is at the foot of the stairs when she speaks again.

“I won't send a runner.”

He stops one foot on the stairs. “What?” Deacon turns slightly, her frown deepens when she sees the expression on his face, but she stands resolute.

“If you do not promise to return, I will not send a runner.” She steps forward in the face of Deacon’s silence. Frankly, he not sure what to say that doesn’t involve resorting to nasty insults and he’s not that childish. “University Point is a short distance from Jamaica Plains and you don't _need_ a runner. You want one to expedite the process, so if you don’t wish to spend more time than necessary with The Deathclaws, you will return here.”

He _does_ need a runner. She’s not wrong about University Point not being very far way, but even a day could cost lives. If he can’t pass Ash’s death off as her own fault or if Garrett or Robin or Yang saw him kill her, The Claws will march on Diamond City and the Minutemen will lose their advantage. Deacon will loose months of maneuvering, and he may well lose more lives, both in The Claws and outside of them.

Deacon considers arguing the point with Amari, making her understand that he _needs_ a runner, but he doesn’t have the time nor the patience to stand here and a lay out, point by point why needs what. He detoured here specifically for a Railroad runner, and he will have one, even if he has to promise to come back and spend time in those virtual-reality deathtraps. 

“Fine,” Deacon snaps. “I’ll be back, just send the fuckin’ runner.”

Every time he swears her face shifts into a frown. She might mention his language if she thought she could get away with it, but he’s glad she doesn’t say anything. He knows that all his charm, wit, and vocabulary leave him when he’s in this much of a state and he doesn’t need reminding that’s underneath all his masks he’s an uncouth bore who will happily resort to violence when things don’t go exactly his way.

“I have your word?” she asks, drawing out a promise, knowing he won’t back out of one.

“Yeah, you have my word.”

“And Deacon?”

“ _What?!_ ” He can’t help shouting a little in frustration and Amari takes a step back.

“Who does that uniform belong to?”

He deflates a little. “Ellie Perkins. You’ll find her at Valentine Detective Agency.”

Deacon charges up the stairs after Amari has given a slight nod —a promise to see the uniform home to its rightful owner. He meets Irma on the main floor, her rifle still slung over her shoulder and a displeased look on her face. 

“You shot my lock,” she says.

“Take it out of my stash,” he replies without stopping. 

Outside, there are a group of Neighbourhood Watch guards milling about. When they see Deacon exiting The Memory Den, a couple give a shout of: “Boss.” Deacon shoves his way through the group until a strong hand wraps around his arm and halts him.

“Hey brother,” a gravelly voice says, “what’s your rush?”

Deacon follows the gloved hand up the length of a heavy winter overcoat to the scared face of a ghoul who’s wearing a tricorn hat. Great. 

“Oh you know,” Deacon says, voice dropping low. “Life, liberty, the pursuit of Wasteland scumbags who need a couple mini-nukes dropped on ‘em. The usual.” He pulls his arm from Hancock’s grasp. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

The Neighbourhood Watch forms a wall and prevents Deacon from passing. He snarls a little.

“You sure this is the guy?” one of The Watch guards asks. “He ain’t wearing no Diamond City armour.”

“He coulda changed,” says another.

The one who was asked the question, responds: “Yeah, that’s him. Look at those eyes. They have all fury of the Wastes in them.”

There's a snort. “What are you? A fuckin’ poet?” 

“Enough,” Hancock says and The Watch falls quiet. “I don’t like it when people come into my town to shoot up property and disturb the peace of a couple of nice ladies. Punishment for that is a beating. It happens again, we’ll kill you. Simple as that.”

Deacon whirls on Hancock, anger spilling over. “I helped you get this fuckin’ town, Hancock, so in these extenuating circumstances, I’d hope for a little leniency for the guy who helped train your drifter militia.”

There’s murmuring from The Watch, no doubt some of them are the original militia that stood against Vic and his men. The ghoul stares at him, but Deacon can’t read anything in his black gaze. 

Finally, he says: “This is a one-time deal. It happens again, you won’t get any special consideration. We clear?”

Deacon gives a sharp nod, and The Neighbourhood Watch parts to let him leave. As he’s walking away, Deacon hears one of The Watch throw a comment at his back.

“What's with those Railroad types?” the man asks. “Think they can do anything they like ‘cause they’re part of some ‘noble’ cause. Synths can rot in hell for all I care.”

Deacon doesn’t bother looking back or slowing his stride. He’s got no interest in trying to change someone’s small-minded views of the world, nor the time. After a moment of laughter from the group, there’s a heavy, muffled noise, and a grunt of pain. 

“Takes a special kinda person to risk their lives for someone else without the prospect of gettin’ something in return,” Hancock growls. “More so, when those people are feared and hated throughout the ‘Wealth for bein’ different. Somethin’ I happen to know a lot about.”

Surprised, Deacon glances over his shoulder. Hancock is standing over a Watch guard who’s kneeling on the street, arms wrapped around his gut.

“Don’t mistake me protectin’ this town for acceptance of your pigheaded ideas about the world.” Hancock point at Deacon. “He’s a better man than you’ll ever be.”

Deacon wishes that were true. 

\- - - - -

He doesn’t stop to camp until dawn. 

Deacon finds an old cabin in the woods north of Fairline Hill Estates and hunkers down for a few hours, after building a small fire in the stove. He doesn’t bother with the alarm clock he found upstairs in the bedroom while checking the house for ferals, his nightmares always ensure he never gets more than a few hours of sleep at a time. 

He awakens again in a tangled, sweaty mess of sleeping bag and limbs. Courtesy of his fucked up mind, and memories of Braun, he’s just had to live through Tom’s death a dozen times while Braun chided him for killing another innocent man. Deacon’s going to be so glad to be rid of The Claws and these nightmares. 

As soon as he’s done appeasing Amari, he’s going straight for the vault and not leaving again until he feels he’s gotten himself back under control and Braun’s been shoved back into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, never to be thought on again.

After he’s gained stock of himself, Deacon heads out. He tries to shave time off the journey by crossing the plains of the Wastes rather than sticking to the roads. The roads are safer, but it’s quicker to cut across the expanse of the wilderness -at the expense of running into things that you’d rather avoid. However, Deacon is quick and light and knows how to avoid most things that cause trouble for caravans, plus with the light snow cover, he can avoid larger animals by the tracks they’ve left. 

He makes it to Jamaica Plains around sunset like he believed he would. He doubts he’s made it back before Garrett, Robin, and Yin since he had to detour to Goodneighbour, but it’s possible they ran into more trouble. Deacon heads to the bunk house to stash his pack, then he heads directly for the church. 

He’s had some time while on the road to consider how he wants to approach this situation -and to wash the blood off his hands in the snow. He needs to set this up right so that when he tells Glory and the Minutemen that tonight is the night that they rain hell down upon The Deathclaws, they will get the maximum effect for their actions. 

Right now the only thing he cares about, is causing the greatest amount of damage to the leaders. If he can sow enough dissent, they will not be able to rally when the Minutemen strike. Deacon enters the hall, throwing one door open to gather the attention of those inside. The eyes of The Claws (the church is only about half full) are drawn to the noise and whispering begins when they realize who it is.

At the far end of the church, Savage Zac, Johnny Maim, Sawbones, and Brother Charlie are at the leader's table. They look up at the noise. Bloody Garrett is nowhere to be seen and Deacon’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Savage Zac stands, hops onto his chair and shouts good-naturedly across the church.

“Dane! You return to us from your great battle with Diamond City. Tell me, how many did Ash kill? Or did you manage to pull her away before things go too bloody?”

Deacon slams the door shut behind him in response. Savage Zac leans to one side as if trying to peer around his slender form, as Deacon walks up the aisle. Johnny stands abruptly, his chair scraping back, tipping, and landing with a _thud_ on the ground behind him. It echoes loudly in the space now that the church has gone silent.

“Where is she?” Johnny asks. “If you’ve come back here without her, I’ll—”

“What, Johnny? Kill him for being able to do what even you yourself cannot?” Savage Zac scoffs. “No one could control her when she got it in her mind to kill something.”

Johnny looks ready to lunge, and Brother Charlie stands. Deacon speaks up. He needs time for the Minutemen to get into place and if they start killing each other now, The Claws will scatter before they have a chance to get them all. 

“I tried to stop her, Johnny. She ran at the Diamond City guards with a snarl, cutting down several. I shot at others, trying to drive them back so we could escape…it was only meant to be a distraction for the others to get away,” Deacon says, voice carrying well in the church as he approaches the table. “I called out for her to stop, for her to retreat while I covered her, but she refused. They overwhelmed her.”

The last of Deacon’s words are blotted out by a roar from Johnny as he flips the table.

“I’ll kill ‘em,” Johnny says, “I’ll kill every last one of those motherfuckers until it isn’t known as the Green Jewel, but a red one.”

Savage Zac rolls his eyes. “All by yourself, hun? Even you can’t do that.”

“Then, let’s go, now, and take it,” Johnny says, voice a growl of rage and grief.

“Well, I suppose,” Zac says, tapping his mouth. “It’ll take a day to get the supplies and manpower together. You can handle that last one, right?”

Johnny nods. 

“Good. I’ll talk with Garrett, seeing as how you ruined supper.”

Savage Zac hops down from the chair and makes his way across the aisle, Brother Charlie and Sawbones following in his wake as Johnny heads along the side of the building. Zac pauses momentarily in front of Deacon as he gestures for Deacon to follow; ahead Johnny heads out into the cold and Deacon falls into step with Savage Zac.

“Poor dear will be beside himself for _ages_ because of this. Garrett too, I suppose. Honestly, how can one woman cause such a stir? She wasn’t even that nice to look at,” Savage Zac sniffs. “Good armourer, though. You look dreadful, by the way. Eat something, sugar cake, before you waste away.” Zac directs him to the food line. “We’ll talk again soon, I’m sure.”

Savage Zac gives him one last calculating look before he and the other two Claws disappear out the church door. 

Deacon grabs some food he can eat on the way back to the bunk house, as well as filling his pockets with purified water cans and dried rations. He’s not sure what will be left after the Minutemen roll through so he grabs what he can now to make sure he makes it Quincy. He frowns slightly as he heads out the door, he should have grabbed some caps will he was up in Goodneighbour. Shit. He’ll just have to scrounge for some here. Surely there are 350 caps lying around this place in various pockets and stashes.

He eats quickly on his way back to the bunk house, cutting across Jamaica Plains. As he crosses through the parking lot and down the stairs in front of the shop, he hears Savage Zac talking with Bloody Garrett, no doubt telling him, with no little glee, that Ash has been killed. 

_Ding, dong the witch is dead,_ he thinks. 

Deacon rounds the side of the main bunk house in time to see Johnny jogging up the street, away from the doors. He’s probably going around telling everyone to get ready to leave. Deacon slips inside. 

The bunk house is chaos. Claws everywhere are scrambling around, getting their gear together, finding ammo for their guns, cleaning weapons; some are talking about what might have happened up to cause this, some are saying it has something to do with him —this group saw him arrive earlier and were surprised Deacon made it back. When the rest of The Claws in the church make it back, there will be more gossip thrown around, he’s sure. 

Deacon threads his way through the main floor and runs up the stairs. He hasn’t seen Georgie yet, so he hopes that they’ve just managed to miss each other during the last half hour. Sure enough, when he gets into their room, Georgie is crouched near her locker, shoving things into a canvas duffle bag, muttering to herself. 

“He could’ve at least said how long we’ll be gone. I have no idea many days I need to pack for…”

Deacon touches her on the shoulder and she jumps slightly. 

“Dane! I thought that was your stuff on the floor. Did you hear Johnny? He’s in a fit over something. We’re going to Diamond City to quote: ‘fuck those assholes up’.” She frowns. “Is that a good idea?”

Deacon glances behind him to see if anyone is nearby.

“No. It’s not,” he says, voice low. “Don’t pack for that, pack all your things; then get Alan, Robin, Corvega-”

“Leo,” she reminds him with a smirk.

“Right. And Emogene and get out of here.”

“What? Why?”

“Have you ever been to Diamond City?”

She looks at him weird. “Yeah. A few times.”

“Then you know, that between the guards and The Wall, The Claws aren’t going to get into the city easily. Savage Zac and Johnny and Garrett and all of them are going to throw people like you at the DCS until they fall. You’re cannon fodder to them, Georgie. Is that what you want?”

“I—No.”

“And do you think that once they get inside they’ll just content themselves with taking over running of the city, or do you suppose that they might slaughter a few so-called 'synths' for the hell of it?”

She visibly pales. Those raiding parties really took a toll on her. She told him once, and only once, about how the group she was with would tear families apart on nothing more than the accusation of someone being a synth. They didn’t care about proof, they just wanted blood. They never did find a synth.

“You need to leave,” Deacon says, “And you need to leave tonight.”

Georgie starts shaking her head. “I can’t. Not with the prospect that they might actually make it to Diamond City—”

“They won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Deacon stares at her for a moment, trying to decide how much he should give away. 

“The Minutemen are coming. Tonight,” he whispers. “They’re taking down this place and everyone in it.”

She puts a hand over her mouth. For a moment it looks like she might accuse him of being a traitor so Deacon continues. If she thinks that about him, she might not listen and he cannot have another good person’s death on his conscious. 

“I overheard them talking, but I didn’t say anything to anyone because I think this place does need to be wiped out.” Deacon grabs her arms, trying to communicate his plea for her to leave. “Please go, Georgie. Tell the others what you must, but don’t be here when they start attacking.”

She’s silent for a moment and then she nods. “Okay, Dane. I’ll pack and try and convince the others to go, but what about you?”

“I’m leaving too,” he says. “I just have some things to do first.”

Deacon alternates between pacing around in an impatient fit and double checking that he has all his meager belongings packed. Georgie keeps shooting him looks as she collects her things (it takes her longer to get her stuff together as she’d been here longer than him), but when she has them all packed, she leaves to talk with the others and Deacon is left in peace to pace. 

He doesn’t leave for the Minutemen camp until the bunk house has settled down for the night, and because of the big stir, it takes several hours. Deacon would like to sit and rest for a bit, maybe catch some shut eye, but he can’t settle long enough for that to happen. When everyone else has settled down, Deacon heads out. Before he starts out for the Minutemen camp, he needs to make a stop at the church. In the bell tower is where a Claw hangs out to keep an eye on the Minutemen. He doesn’t need anyone finding out he’s going to the camp tonight, so he’s going to take care of that scout. 

The church is nearly empty when he arrives. Just a few Claws sitting at a table, talking. They glance up when Deacon arrives, but go back to their conversation soon enough. It doesn’t take long for him to get to the back and climb the spiral staircase. He slows his steps as he nears the top. He can hear a small fire crackling and the shifting of a man at the top. 

As Deacon reaches the last step before the small platform, the man turns slightly, about to say something, but he doesn’t get the chance. Deacon rams his knife into the side of his neck and covers the man’s mouth so those downstairs don’t hear anything is amiss. The Claw soon slumps in Deacon’s grip, blood shimmering in the firelight as it trails down his front. Deacon releases him, propping him better in the chair so he doesn’t tumble down the stairs, wipes the little blood that got onto his hands on the man’s pants, and leaves.

The Claws on the main floor, spare him a few looks as he goes by again, but they are clearly uninterested in whatever it was that he had to do. 

Deacon starts hiking out of Jamaica Plains. He burnt his Claw armband in the small fire he made when he camped at dawn, so he doesn’t need to worry about taking it off before he reaches the Minutemen camp. They all know his face anyways, but he feels better when that thing is off his arm. As he crests the hill and starts on the final leg to the Minutemen camp, Deacon can see that most of the Minutemen are gathered around their campfire. It doesn’t look too conspicuous, and as Deacon nods to the Minuteman on watch, he notes that Glory is among them.

He breathes a sigh of relief. He didn’t doubt Amari would send a runner; he doubted they’d arrive in time. 

Glory spots him first and Captain Garvey follows her gaze. Glory looks like she wants to stand, but stays seated while Garvey stands instead to greet him.

“Deacon,” he says and shakes Deacon’s hand. “Trouble?”

Deacon nods.

“Aw, come on, Preston,” Glory calls across the campfire, laughter in her voice. “Don’t you want to kiss him instead of shaking his hand?”

There’s a spattering of laughter from the assembled Minutemen and Garvey flushes slightly. Deacon should laugh as his slight embarrassment, but he’s in no mood for games. He takes a seat next to Glory, and the Captain waves the Minuteman next to Deacon into his vacated chair so they three of them can sit together.

“So, what’s so urgent you had a runner sent from Goodneighbour?” Glory asks. “And what were you even doing up there?”

Deacon frowns. “Getting people killed.”

Glory gives him a look at the heavy tone of his voice, but before she can press him further, Deacon continues.

“The Deathclaws have been watching Diamond City like I said they would be; I just returned from a fight at the city's front gates over two Claws that we busted out of DCS lock up.”

Beside him, Garvey swears and Glory sits up; Deacon has her full attention now.

“This is it, isn’t it? That’s why you wanted all my heavies.”

Deacon nods and explains The Claws plan to march to Diamond City the day after tomorrow, how they had Yin and Yang watching the city, but that they got arrested for killing a ‘synth’. Savage Zac then sent Garrett and Ash along with himself and one other Claw to get a better idea of the whole situation. Finally, that Deacon killed Ash because she started killing DCS guards. He leaves out that didn’t actually act until she tried to kill Nick and that it was someone he knew personally that died, but he suspects that Glory hears that in his voice. 

“Goddamnit,” Garvey says, frustration and anger evident in his tone. “I told Colonel Hollis we needed people up there, but he refused to station Minutemen that far north. If we’d only been there…”

“The Minutemen have done more than enough, Captain. It’s not your fault that they’re dead. It’s mine. The only thing we can do about it is to make sure that The Deathclaws die here, tonight.”

The Captain nods. “Wish we had a bit more warning, but hell, we’ve been waitin’ for this moment for months. I’ll get my men ready.” Garvey stands.

“Hey,” Deacon says, and Garvey turns back. “Ever find a Fat-Man launcher?”

The Captain grins, but it's Lieutenant Davis that speaks.

“Oh did we ever!” she says, wicked glee in her voice. “And a cache of nukes too. Those assholes won’t know what hit 'em.”

“Good. Oh and Captain, I killed the Claw that was observing your camp, so as long as you’re not too obvious about it, they won’t see us comin’, and they’re in too much disarray right now to put up much of a fight.”

Garvey nods and starts calling all his men over. Then, they head to the other side of the collapsed overpass as he tasks another Minuteman to climb to the top and call the watcher down so they can huddle and discuss their strategy. 

Deacon turns to Glory. “Where are your heavies?”

“Stationed at the outskirts of U.P. Didn’t want the Claws to see them arrivin’ here. I’ll get them when we’re ready to move, but Dee, we might have bigger problems than just these Deathclaw assholes.”

“Such as?”

She leans in close keeping her voice low as she speaks. 

“The Institute.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep. You ever hear of a man named Kellogg?”

Deacon nods. 

Kellogg is the boogeyman of The Institute. The only member they’ve ever been able to put a face to aside from Doctor Zimmer, and while Zimmer is a scientist from its highest ranks, Kellogg is their mercenary enforcer. No one knows where he came from or how he ended up working with The Institute, just that there has been sightings of him as long as there’s been a Railroad organization. Some people think he’s a synth because he’s been around so long, but if he is, he’s unlike any Courser The Railroad has ever met. 

Perhaps he was the first. 

If Kellogg visits your home, settlement, safehouse, or campsite, you can be damn sure the synthetic might of The Institute is about to follow. 

“He visited the mayor a few days ago looking for the data that Gerald’s daughter has been trying to sell. It was either give the data up or have it taken by force. They had a couple days to decide.”

“And?” he prompts.

“And I sent them in one direction, and the data in another. If The Institute wants it, we can’t fuckin’ let them have it. I’ve been expecting synthetic hell to rain down on U.P. for days now, but it hasn’t happened yet. It could be tonight; that'd just be our fuckin’ luck.”

Deacon lets out a long stream of swears. 

Glory snorts. “Pretty much. I evacuated Kilo, had Gerald’s daughter wipe everything of importance off the terminals, but University Point is on its own. If The Institute comes tonight…” she trails off and clenches a fist. “You know I don’t like killin’ them if I don’t have to.”

“We can’t leave U.P. to the mercy of The Institute-”

“Like hell we can’t; half of those bastards wouldn’t hesitate to kill me or any other synth.”

Deacon frowns. “And the other half are just tryin’ to get by in this post-apocalyptic world. You know if the Minutemen see University Point getting attacked, they’ll rush in to help. After all they’ve done, we can’t let The Institute kill them over something they had nothing to do with.”

“That’s their job, isn’t it?”

“To clean up our messes?”

Glory huffs in annoyance. “It’s not our fault that girl found something The Institute wants.”

Deacon sighs. Sometimes Glory had her priorities all messed up. It shouldn’t matter who or what someone is —be that synth, ghoul, super mutant, or human— if they want to kill you, then you kill them right back. End of. He understands her reluctance, but they all had to do things they didn’t like. 

“I can’t make you do anything, Glory, but if you go back to HQ and U.P. gets wiped out because you weren’t there to stop it, you’ll regret it.”

Glory looks up at him, eyes steely. “Do you think I’ll regret being dead just as much?”

“I think death is the only peace in this world we get,” he replies and her look softens somewhat.

Deacon stands. 

“Before we go in I have to kill Savage Zac. I’m worried he’ll disappear if I don’t and start something like this again somewhere else. And I am _not_ doing this again. I'll talk to Garvey, and you should go get our heavies.”

Glory nods. “’Bout time I got to kill something. See you on the other side, Dee.”

“Let’s hope.”

\- - - - -

Deacon catches up with Captain Garvey as the Minutemen trek back to the main camp. He explains that he needs to kill Savage Zac before they charge the town to maximize the odds of catching The Deathclaws off guard. Garvey doesn’t like the idea of Deacon returning alone, but he senses that Deacon’s got more than just a small grudge burning against The Deathclaws and their leader. 

The Captain calls out of one of his men and a small object is lobbed at him, he then hands it to Deacon. It’s a flare gun.

“When you’re ready, just fire it off. We’ll rain hell down on ‘em.”

“Got it.” Deacon pockets the flare gun and heads back down the hill.

The church is quiet as he passes so he knows that no know found the Claw he killed, but the next watch rotation is probably coming up soon. He needs to hurry. He chances a look behind him, back up the hill, but the glow of the Minutemen campfire is no longer visible. They must have extinguished it.

Deacon checks the area around Savage Zac’s house to see if anyone is in the shop or surrounding area. He can hear hammering from inside the shop, so he figures Bloody Garrett is still up. Maybe he’s trying to work through the guilt of Ash’s death, or imaging killing DCS guards like Johnny is no doubt doing right now. There’s no one else around, though, and Deacon heads back to the house. 

The two guards on the porch eye Deacon as he steps up to the door, but his presence doesn’t draw them from their chairs or the warmth of their fire. He wishes he had a bit of privacy to steel himself for this, but if he stands here too long they’ll question why he’s here.

Deacon raps on the door. There’s a moment of silence, then someone large and heavy stomps across the floor and the door is pulled open.

“What?” Brother Charlie asks. 

“Savage Zac still up?”

Charlie stares at him for a few moments, his gaze giving nothing away. Zac once said he was ‘touched in the head’, but Charlie’s never struck Deacon as dumb (of course, ‘touched in the head’ could mean so many things). Though, it is hard to tell since Charlie rarely speaks.

Then, Savage Zac’s voice calls out from upstairs: “If that’s Johnny, tell him to go get some sleep, or go kill something. I don’t care which.”

“Not Johnny,” Charlie responds, his deep voice a bass so low it rattles Deacon’s rib cage.

“No? Then who? Quickly Charlie; you’re letting all the warm air out.”

“Singing fighter.”

Apparently Deacon’s not the only one who’s crap with names.

“Really?” Savage Zac’s voice goes from annoyed to curious in a heartbeat. “Well let him in, and shut the damn door!”

Charlie steps back and Deacon squeezes past his broad frame into the warmth of the house. The door clicks closed and Deacon can hear Savage Zac’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Shoo! Shoo!” Zac says to Charlie, who’s blocking Deacon’s sightline to the stairs. “Go back to bed.”

Charlie hums and lumbers back to his bed in a curtained off area to the left of Zac’s pallet throne.

“What brings you here so late, sugar cake?” Savage Zac asks as he leans on the rail of the stairs, several steps from the bottom. He’s wearing an old paisley-patterned dressing gown that’s far too large for his frame and looks like some elegant dress as it drapes from his wrists in large hoops of fabric and pools at his feet. 

Deacon shoots a glance at Charlie’s back like he’s uncertain if he should speak in front of the man.

“Oh don’t worry about him,” Zac says with a small smile. “He won’t kiss and tell.”

Deacon tugs off his toque and runs a hand through his hair (it’s gotten quiet long since he last had it cut, and has become an unruly, wavy mess) in a showy gesture of frustration and uncertainty.

“I was just at the Minutemen camp,” Deacon starts and Savage Zac’s smile gets a little hard. “I needed to burn off a little steam, ya know? After…everything.” He starts pacing in front of the stairs. He makes his tone uncertain and his words hesitant. Deacon wants Savage Zac to pounce on his supposed weakness. “But he was…already busy.” He spits the last two words out, tone somewhere between annoyed and angry.

Savage Zac’s smile widens. “Oh, I see. So you thought you might find little… _leverage_ in a second choice?” 

Deacon frowns and ducks his head. Shit. He maybe shouldn’t have pushed the man so far last time. “You did offer,” he mumbles.

Zac chuckles. “Yes, and you declined, if I remember correctly.”

“No chance to rectify a mistake?”

“Well, you’re getting warmer.”

Deacon looks up at Savage Zac and swallows. Not out of nervousness as it must surely seem to Zac, but rather against the rising bile for the next words he has to utter. 

“Would you still like to fuck me?”

Savage Zac grins in triumph at him, but doesn’t move except to raise a single eyebrow. Deacon tries again.

“I’d like you to fuck me.”

“Much better, sugar cake,” Zac purrs. “Now, leave those things-” he gestures to Deacon’s gear, “-down here and come on up.” Zac turns and heads back up the stairs in a swirl of paisley fabric.

Deacon looks down at his things and silently swears. If he has to leave his knife here, this is going to be harder than he thought. Still, Deacon is much larger than Zac, he could easily overpower the man, but he isn’t looking forward to strangling him. That’s a little too intimate for his comfort level. Of course, one might say that about knifing someone to death, but Deacon’s long gotten over that. 

He sheds his gear, toes off his boots, and heads upstairs. 

Savage Zac’s room is lit by a few lanterns scattered about. At the far end, directly in front of Deacon, as he crests the top of the stairs, is an old folding screen with a scattered collection of clothing and armour hanging off of it and in heaps on the floor. To the right, along the wall, near a boarded up window, is a dresser topped with the various knickknacks one might find in their pockets: a lighter, smokes, a few bottle caps, crumpled scraps of paper, as well as Savage Zac’s laser pistol. 

Pressed against the railing of the stairs, in the area behind where Deacon landed on the second floor, is the bed. It’s a standard Old World affair, with a large headboard and covered in a patched blanket. There’s a set of curtains hanging behind it, and Deacon assumes that there is a boarded up window there. A couple of carpets on the hardwood floor complete the space. 

Savage Zac is waiting for Deacon on the bed. He’s sitting at the foot, legs cross under the copious fabric of his dressing gown. Zac pats the bed next to him with a smile and Deacon wishes he still had all his gear on; he feels naked with only his patched button-up, jeans, and socks. Deacon crosses the space and takes up the invitation of Zac, who wastes no time in tackling the buttons on his shirt. Deacon doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he just plants them on the bed and watches as Zac tugs his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans to get at the last few buttons. 

When he’s done, Deacon shrugs out of the shirt and tosses it on the floor. Now he only has a t-shirt, jeans and socks to protect him from Savage Zac’s predatory grin. Zac plants a hand on Deacon’s chest and pushes for him to lie down. When Deacon has settled himself against the pillow, Zac shifts down the edge of the bed until he’s close enough to kiss Deacon. 

He does so languidly; running his hands up Deacon’s sides and causing his muscles to twitch as sensitive areas are brushed over. Deacon does his best to follow Zac’s lead the kiss and tries to imagine it’s someone else. He’s only ever had sex with one other man and imaging Amata or Sarah or even Bekka is really going to put a dent in his mood -not that it’s particularly great right now, anyways. Plus, that one man wasn’t exactly the lovey-dovey type and he refuses to think of Nick. He can’t sully those memories with this. 

Right. Stuck with the reality of the situation.

Zac slides his hands over Deacon’s shoulders, tracing the lines of his triceps down to his forearm and coming to a rest at Deacon’s wrists. Zac grasps them and shoves Deacon’s hand up over his head, pinning them against the headboard. Deacon resists for a moment, unsure of where this is going, but Zac just keeps them there with light pressure as he nuzzles along Deacon’s jaw and after a moment Deacon relaxes. 

He immediately regrets it. 

Zac releases one wrist, and while he has Deacon distracted, clicks a handcuff closed around the one he still has in his grasp. Deacon immediately rails against it, bringing his free hand over to try and wriggle out of it. Savage Zac uses that opportunity to close another handcuff around his other wrist and sits back on the bed with a laugh.

Deacon looks up at the headboard as he follows the chains that are connected to the ends of each handcuff to where they disappear behind the curtain. He can see the tattered remains of wall paper where the curtain is parted. It was never a window the curtain was covering, but these chains and handcuffs. Deacon looks over at Savage Zac, a black look settling over his face. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Zac says with a smirk. “You didn’t honestly think I trusted you enough to go without this protection, did you?” He slowly shoves the edges of Deacon’s t-shirt up until its bunched under his arms, displaying the expanse of Deacon’s chest and stomach, along with his various scars. 

Deacon’s mind is running in overdrive now. He has to get out of this situation. He tests the strength of the chains and where they’re bolted to the wall, but they’re firm. He can’t get the right leverage from this angle for a proper tug. Zac chuckles darkly over his struggle and Deacon snarls at him.

“Hush now. You’ll enjoy it; I promise.” Zac runs his hands over Deacon’s bare skin. “You’ll be begging me to use the cuffs every time after this. Oh, what’s this?” He pushes Deacon’s shirt up a little further, exposing his blood-type tattoo. “Well, nice to see you weren’t lying about being a Gunner, sugar cake.”

Zac traces the ‘O’ with a fingernail and Deacon takes several deep breaths as he tries to calm himself. He’ll never get the upper hand on Savage Zac if he acts like some caged wild animal. First things first. He needs to find either the key for the cuffs or a bobbypin. Savage Zac’s hair is down from his customary styled mohawk, but there’s probably one or two bobbypins laying around on the nightstand. He looks over and confirms his suspicions; how he’ll reach them, is another matter altogether. 

Now he needs to consider how he’ll kill Savage Zac. He doesn’t have use of his hands anymore, but his legs are still free. They won’t be any good to him if he ends up on his knees though, so he needs to entice Zac to get between them before that happens—

Deacon gasps as Zac’s mouth closes around one nipple. He laves and gently flicks it until it’s a straining peak as his thumb gently strokes Deacon’s other one. Savage Zac sucks on it lightly, until he’s satisfied that’s it's appropriately flushed and hard. Then, he slides over to the other one and Deacon feels something catching on his light-coloured chest hair as Zac moves. He glances down automatically to try and see what it is, but he can only see the curly mop of Zac’s hair and he looks away again. 

He doesn’t want that to be in his field of vision as he feels arousal start to build in his gut. 

When Zac’s given the same treatment to Deacon’s other nipple, he rises and kisses Deacon again. Deacon tastes the salt of his own skin in Savage Zac’s mouth. This time, Zac is less slow and languid, and more impatient as he demands submission from Deacon. Deacon fights briefly, before giving in and Zac hums his approval.

Deacon prefers to be the submissive party in a sexual encounter. 

Probably because he spends most of his time (or use to anyways) being the dominant force in people's lives, giving orders, determining plans and actions of groups, and generally being in charge of everything. People defer to him because he doesn’t hum and haw over a decision; he thinks about the pros and cons and then makes it. He’s always been a leader, but just because he’s good at it (or used to be, but even that’s debatable) doesn’t mean that he wants to be one.

He doesn’t want to make those decisions, be responsible for the consequences, or people’s lives, or any of burdens that come with leadership. Deacon does it because there is often no one else, and he can’t ask others to do the things he’s unwilling to do himself. However, he likes to give up that control and let someone else decide how things will go and work, even if it's only for a night. 

So Savage Zac wanting Deacon to submit is, unfortunately, _really_ doing it for him. 

Zac pulls back and runs a thumb over Deacon’s lips. Deacon tries to not let his mouth fall into a frown and looks away from Savage Zac’s face. He catches sight of something sparkling in the low light and finds a chain peeking out of Zac’s dressing gown. At the end of it is a small key. Deacon’s lips quirk up slightly; it’s the handcuff key.

Savage Zac grips Deacon’s chin. “Look at me, Dane,” he says and Deacon flicks his eyes back to Zac’s. Zac looks at him for a few seconds. “That’s much better,” he purrs and releases Deacon’s chin. Then, he slides back down the bed, coming to rest at Deacon’s hips. 

He starts unbuckling Deacon’s belt, teasing him with slow, exaggerated movements. Zac tisks a little when he sees that Deacon’s had to put a couple new holes in his belt. Deacon can’t help the way his breath speeds up slightly, when Zac unbuttons his jeans and pulls the zipper down, his knuckles brushing against Deacon’s swelling cock.

Savage Zac slides his fingers under Deacon’s jeans and underwear and commands him to lift his hips. He slides them both down the length of Deacon’s legs and off before he lets them drop to the floor. Zac makes a noise of appreciation as he runs a hand up the inside of Deacon’s legs, stopping just before he reaches Deacon’s dick. Deacon groans in frustration and spreads his legs. A clear invitation for Zac. If he’d only get within Deacon’s reach…

“You have such lovely, long legs, Dane,” Savage Zac says as he strokes in the inside of Deacon’s thigh; his other hand pressed firmly in his lap even as he looks completely unaffected by the whole thing. 

Deacon decides he’s going to need to spur Zac into action because, at this rate, the Minutemen are going to freeze before he gets the opportunity to fire off that flare gun. 

“Not a woman, Zac; don’t need compliments. You want to get me goin’? I can think of a better use for your mouth.”

Savage Zac laughs, but his nails dig into the tender flesh of Deacon’s thigh in warning and Deacon hisses. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he rumbles, hand smoothing over the now reddened flesh. “To see me on my knees for you?” Zac’s hand moves up to stroke the prominent jut of Deacon’s hip bone.

“You want me to submit, don’t you?” Deacon replies. “That’s what this is for, right?” He jangles the chains. “It isn’t about trust. It’s about control.” Deacon spreads his legs further a part, until the knee of his right leg bumps against Zac’s back. “A lotta control to be had when you reduce a man to a sobbin’ mess.”

Savage Zac looks at Deacon through lidded eyes. He’s probably enjoying that image of Deacon, but his hand hasn’t moved any closer to Deacon’s half-hard cock. 

“Where’s the control when it’s your idea and not mine?” Zac asks, with a smirk. He’s fucking with Deacon when he should be trying to fuck him. “Besides, look at the state of that thing.” Zac’s eyes flick to Deacon’s cock. “Not exactly giving us a full showing, sugar cake.”

Deacon throws his head back in frustration. Fuck. Fuck, fuckity, _fuck._

Savage Zac chuckles. “You do something about that, and I’ll consider it.” He removes his hand from Deacon and folds his hands in his lap, an expectant look on his face. “I’ll just sit here until you do.”

Deacon sighs and closes his eyes; he can’t reach Zac from where he’s sitting on the bed, so at this point, he doesn’t have much choice. He’s going to have to put on a show, but hey, he’s good at those, right? He shuffles through various fantasies (some old, but all varying levels of painful) until he stumbles on one that stabs his heart and stirs the coals of arousal simmering in his gut. 

Nick. 

Of course it’s Nick. 

He knows how the memory actually goes: Nick kissed him and he responded like starved yao guai, but then his mind got the better of him and he pulled away. Then, Nick spoke to him in that low rasp —Deacon’s stomach clenches in memory of it. The way that Nick looked at him, like he wanted to keep going, but didn’t want to press his luck twice in a row and how Deacon almost took him up on that offer…

_…and then did._

_He pulls Nick back with a tug on his coat where Deacon’s fists are tangled. Nick slides his mouth back over Deacon’s with a small smile. His hand coming up to trace along the column of Deacon’s neck from where it had fallen to his shoulders -because he needed the leverage to shove Deacon back against the cinderblock wall. Deacon uncurls one hand from Nick’s coat to drape it around his neck and pulls him closer; there is suddenly far too much space between them._

_Nick drops his hand to snake under Deacon’s jacket and tries to find the edge of his shirt, but he quickly becomes frustrated by Deacon’s many layers and pulls back._

_“Off,” Nick growls in that same rough tone, and Deacon’s knees get a little weak. “All of it.” He starts pulling at Deacon’s tool belt buckle as Deacon scrabbles at the zipper of his bomber jacket._

_He has to push Nick back so he can get out of his jacket, and as he’s impatiently shoving it off his shoulders, Deacon’s tool belt falls in a noisy heap at his feet. Nick starts on the brass buttons of his navy vest and Deacon’s hands move to the belt buckle on his pants._

_Deacon has to pause in his work so that Nick can shove the vest back of his shoulders, but he doesn’t get the chance to go back because Nick is suddenly tugging his dress shirt out of his jeans and over his head. Nick presses him back into the cinderblock wall then, and Deacon hisses at the cool, rough stone on his bare back._

_The summer sun has left him with a trail of dark freckles on his shoulders, upper back and chest, arms, and face -the white of his dress shirts offer very little protection from the sun’s rays. Nick traces them with gentle hands, the cool metal of his exposed hand making Deacon’s muscles twitch. Deacon watches him with lidded eyes and tries to control his breathing._

_Nick stills his hands and looks at Deacon._

_“Stay,” he says, voice a low rumble._

_Deacon smirks. “Kiss me again, detective, and I’ll consider it.”_

_Nick chuckles and slots his leg between Deacon’s, pressing up against Deacon’s very obvious arousal. Deacon groans and Nick swallows it with another kiss._

Deacon starts when Savage Zac’s hand closes around his cock. 

“I love a man who can follow orders. Maybe later you tell me just what sort of imaginings produced this,” Zac says as he strokes Deacon’s now raging erection. 

“Not sure you want to know,” Deacon pants out as his hips buck. 

Savage Zac’s hand stills as a frown settles on his face. “Was it that horrible Minuteman? Ugh. Well,” Zac stands. “I suppose I’d better put him out of your head.”

Zac’s erection is very obvious in the light fabric of the dressing gown, but he ignores it as he tugs Deacon hips to the edge of the bed, Deacon’s one arm straining against the short leash of the chain. When both of Deacon’s feet are on the ground, and he’s twisted at an odd angle, Zac sweeps back the bottom of the dressing gown and kneels. Deacon is suddenly reminded of a scene in a movie where a king kneeled in a similar fashion as he challenged the promise of a teacher to never have her head higher than his. 

Deacon means to snap his legs closed the moment Savage Zac gets into position, but Zac is much quicker about closing his mouth around Deacon’s aching cock than he thought he would be and Deacon’s legs fall open involuntarily. He tries to clamp down on a moan because Jesus fucking Christ he can’t let Savage Zac _actually_ reduce him to a sobbing mess.

It’s a very near thing, though.

Zac sucks his dick with all the enthusiasm Deacon might have used to attack his own cock had he not been interrupted mid-fantasy and he had the full use of his arms. Savage Zac pins his bucking hips to the bed with surprising strength considering his size as he pays close attention to the area just under the head of Deacon’s cock and then the slit at the top. He has to bite his tongue against the litany of things that just want to spill out, but when Savage Zac swallow him down to the root, he can’t help the gasping moan and that slips out. 

Deacon doesn’t realize that Zac has released his throbbing cock until he feels the warm breath of the man cooling the spit coating it.

“I was beginning to think you’d never make a noise,” Savage Zac says with a smirk, one arm propped on Deacon’s thigh. 

Deacon looks down the length of his torso, past the obscene curve of his cock, and down to where Zac is smirking at him. His mouth lifts in a snarl and Savage Zac sees the expression change on his face too late. Deacon snaps his legs closed, trapping Zac’s one arm next to his head and the other arm underneath Deacon’s thighs. He twists his body, flipping Savage Zac and overlapping the chains, trapping Zac between the side of the bed and Deacon, hoping this might protect his dick from any serious repercussions because he’s very vulnerable like this. 

Deacon squeezes his legs together with all the force that he can muster and Savage Zac pounds alternatingly on the floor and Deacon’s legs. He’s moderately worried that the noise will alert Brother Charlie, but he has to deal with one problem at a time. Then, a sharp pain lances up his leg. Zac must have found something to stab him with, but Deacon doesn’t let go. In fact, his cock throbs at the sensation, but he’ll have to pick apart his apparent fascination with adrenaline and pain in correlation with arousal at later date. 

After a few moments more of weak struggling, Savage Zac goes limp. Deacon holds on for several more heartbeats, just to be sure it isn’t a feint, then he releases and scrambles onto the bed the best he can without the use of his hands. On the floor below, Deacon can hear the creak of the bed as Brother Charlie shifts and he tries to reach Zac where’s leaning awkwardly on the side of the bed, but the chains are too short. 

Deacon shifts his weight onto his one leg and hisses in pain as it protests the weight. He glances quickly at it to find the cause: a small pen-knife is embedded in the muscles of his thigh. Lovely. He tries to ignore the pain as he lets the leg bear his weight and uses the other to try and fish the necklace from around Zac’s neck. He has to shove Zac’s hair out of the way with his foot, ignore the impatient throb of his cock in time with his rapid heartbeat, and now worry about the sound of heavy feet hitting the floor downstairs. He tries to grasp the chain between his toes, but he doesn’t have the dexterity with them that he needs and he can’t quite get it. 

“Zac?” Charlie calls from downstairs. 

Fuck. Deacon swipes at the chain again and manages to get it between his toes, but when he yanks on it, it slips out. 

Brother Charlie starts walking across the floor downstairs and Deacon tries again, getting desperate. He fumbles a couple times, but finally gets it grasped again and this time wraps it around his big toe before yanking it. The chain snaps and comes free of Zac’s neck. 

“Zac?” Charlie calls again, closer now. At the foot of the stairs. 

Deacon lays back and swings his leg up within reach of his hand and grabs the key at the end of the chain. He makes quick work of the handcuffs as Brother Charlie starts climbing the stairs. Zac probably has some kind of ‘don’t disturb me while I’m busy upstairs’ deal with his brother, but since he hasn’t responded, like any good sibling, Charlie is going to make sure that his brother is okay. 

Deacon scrambles off the bed, shirt sliding back down his chest as he dashes across the room to the dresser where Savage Zac’s laser pistol is sitting. His hand closes around the weapon, immediately familiar with its weight and handling. Deacon turns flicks off the safety switch and aims it at where Brother Charlie is just starting to crest the railing of the stairs. 

He fires at Charlie, hoping that the damn pistol has at least half a charge left in its cell. There’s moment of surprise that crosses Charlie’s face as he catches sight of Deacon standing at the other end of the room, half-naked with a hard-on the size of a 10mm pistol and pointing his brother’s gun at his head, but it’s quickly replaced with a look of pain as Deacon fires five shots into his head and chest. Without armour, the laser fire easily burns through flesh and Charlie falls without much more than a grunt of pain, collapsing against the second-floor landing. 

Deacon tries to calm his breathing as he pulls the knife from his leg and tosses it on the floor, blood quickly oozing out of the wound. He listens for the guards outside the house, in case they decide to investigate the noise. After a moment of silence, nothing seems forthcoming, but he doesn’t want to press his luck. He heads back to the bed, shoots Zac in the back of the head just in case he wasn’t actually dead and only unconscious and grabs his jeans from their heap on the floor.

He steps into them and pulls them up, but he can’t imagine trying to tuck his flush and leaking cock into the confines of his pants. Just the thought of touching it makes him groan. This is a new level of fucked up, even for him. Deacon sits on the edge of the bed and tries to think of something to wilt his erection, but the only thing that he manages to conjure up is Nick, and that is doing the _exact_ opposite. 

He doesn’t have all day to sit here and argue with his dick, so Deacon spits in his hand and fists himself as he smears some pre-cum with the pad of his thumb. He strokes, fast and hard, twisting slightly on every down stroke, trying to drive himself over the edge as quickly and efficiently as possible. He flits through a dozen different imaginings of Nick fucking him, watching him, calling him kid…Deacon shakes his head. That last thing is not doing it for him. 

_‘What, then?’ Nick asks with a low, rough chuckle._

“Jack,” he gasps and Deacon can’t even remember the last time that name crossed his lips. 

Suddenly, the dozens of images coalesce into one, and Nick’s hand is around his cock, stroking, in short, rapid movements that have Deacon strung taut. 

_‘Any time now, **Jack** ,’ Nick rumbles in his ear._

Deacon comes fast and hard, and with a cry. Behind his eyelids, the world disappears into a static burst of white.

The first thing he hears is his own panting like he’d just run a marathon. Or the very least ran from a raging deathclaw. Deacon forces his breathing to slow and takes deep breaths to offset the need for air. He sits up and thankfully finds that most of his mess ended up on the floor, though some of it is on his shirt. He frowns slightly and uses the bed spread to wipe it off. 

Then, he tucks himself away (carefully because he’s practically rubbed his dick raw in his enthusiasm), zips his jeans, and stands. Deacon picks his button-up shirt off the floor, slides into it and hurriedly does it up. He’s not going to spend one moment thinking about masturbating with two corpses the room, Deacon doesn’t need the reminder he’s even more fucked up than he thought he was. He grabs Savage Zac’s laser pistol, digs through the drawers of the dresser looking for a few spare cells, finds a large collection of caps in a Vault-Tec lunch box along with some fusion cells in the shoe box next to it.

He shoves as many as he can in his pockets, grabs the lunch box, and then heads for the stairs. Deacon has to hop awkwardly around Brother Charlie’s body, but once he’s passed him, he rushes down the stairs. He throws on all his gear in record time, tugs on his toque and runs out into the street. 

Deacon shoots the two Claws on duty outside of Savage Zac’s house —lousy guards that they are, tucks the lunch box between his legs and pulls the flare gun from his pocket. He holds it up in the air and fires the trigger just as he hears:

“Dane!”

The flare arcs into the sky in a flash of white and red light. Deacon turns just in time to see the surprised look on Georgie’s face as she and a group that looks like Alan, Robin, and company, exit the church. Then, the loud whistling noise of an incoming mini-nuke slices through the cold air. Everyone freezes. It lands with a rumbling explosion beyond them (hopefully at the arena), shaking the ground, and in the light of the explosion, Deacon can see the surprise on Georgie’s face transform into shock and then anger. 

The shockwave of the explosion hits Deacon in the back and he stumbles forward a couple steps before he turns and runs back toward the main bunkhouse. Georgie shouts after him, but he ignores her. He hops down the stairs, the caps in the lunch box tinkling lightly as the box shifts in his grip. There’s gunfire behind him, and he can hear the shouts of the Minutemen as they descend the hill into Jamaica Plains. 

He runs around the corner of the bunkhouse, rips open the door and dashes inside, up the stairs. At the top, he starts shouting: “Fight! Fight! Minutemen outside. Minutemen!” to the mostly sleeping group of Claws in this building. Then he’s in his room, shoving the lunch box and pistol in his pack before he stuffs the pack under the bed. Deacon buckles on his tool belt and swings his rifle over his shoulder as he heads back downstairs with a few more shouts just to make sure everyone is good and up. 

He’s not about to start shooting Deathclaws in the bunkhouse. There’s too many of them and too few of him. No, better to find cover outside and pick them off. 

Deacon crosses the main floor’s living area and as he’s about to head out the door, runs into Georgie. 

“What the fuck, Dane?!” she practically screeches at him, and Deacon grabs her by the coat and pulls her outside with him. 

She angrily scrabbles at his hand, trying to get him to release her, but Deacon holds fast and drags her around the side of the building so that they aren’t in the path of The Claws that are about to be pouring out of the door. Only then does he release her. 

“You sonuvabitch,” she snarls and cracks him along the jaw with her fist. His head snaps at the force and the surprise of it. He didn’t know she could hit so fucking hard. “You traitorous sonuvabitch. How dare you—”

“How dare I what?” Deacon growls, “How dare I be a mole for the Minutemen? How dare I want to bring down a murderous bunch of monsters? Or how dare I lie to you about it all?” 

She stares at him, mouth drawn in a hard line. “I trusted you.”

“Was that trust misplaced? Did I not warn you about the Minutemen attack? Tell you get away with your friends? You shouldn’t still be here.”

The doors of the bunk house burst open as The Claws starting running out of it, and Deacon clamps a hand over Georgie’s mouth and presses her against the wall. He can’t trust her not to call out to them and give him away and he did _not_ come this far to get sold out by a young woman with trust issues. It takes a couple of minutes for them to all exit, but the flow of them finally ebbs and Deacon steps back. Georgie plants two hands into his chest and shoves him further away.

“I’m not sure if I’m more disgusted by the fact that you lied to me all this time, or that you, just now, didn’t trust me enough not to give you away.” She shoves him again, voice breaking. “I saved your _life_ , you asshole!”

“I know, Georgie, and I’m sorry-”

She shakes her head. “Fuck you, Dane. Fuck you and fuck your apology. God, you’re just like _him_. You think saying ‘I’m sorry,’ fixes things? That it somehow makes up for the fact that you spent all this time lying to me? I didn’t accept it from that _fucking synth_ , and I won’t accept it from you either.” 

Georgie steps away from Deacon, moving toward the front of the bunk house, but keeping her front to Deacon because she obviously doesn’t trust him not to try and shoot her in the back. That, more than anything she’s said, is a kick in the gut.

“Just…drop dead, Dane.”

Then, she’s gone. 

Christ, is he going to spend the rest of his life hurting people he cares about? Deacon pounds on the brick wall a couple of times, swearing. Then, he heads out and joins the Minutemen in wiping out The Deathclaws. 

\- - - - -

Without Savage Zac to lead them, The Claws fall without too much of a problem. They’re chaotic and in disarray, the moment the Minutemen and the Railroad heavies fall on them and the bulk of the members are killed in short order. Most don’t try to escape but are rather looking forward to a fight. They have no problems with trying to kill the Minutemen and some of them do fall, but between the Minutemen’s superior tactics and their sniper up on the overpass, their losses are minimal.

Though, Deacon doubts that Captain Garvey sees it that way. 

Two problems do arise in the form of a grief-stricken Johnny and Bloody Garrett.

Johnny’s a rage-monster swinging a large, modded shotgun that’s decimating fellow Claws, Minutemen, and Railroad heavies in equal measure. He doesn’t care who gets caught in his line of fire, just as long as someone fucking dies. Johnny takes several bullets and laser fire to various areas of his body but doesn’t manage to actually go down. Deacon’s beginning to think he’s a synth too like Ash was when Glory seems to tire of the pot-shots people are taking at the man and empties the rest of her ammo belt into him. If Deacon had to guess, it was about 50 rounds. 

Needless to say, Johnny doesn’t get back up. 

Bloody Garrett is the bigger problem, though. While they are trying to put Johnny down, Garrett starts attacking the Minutemen from the other side of camp in Savage Zac’s power armour. He’s got an automatic laser rifle and has the Minutemen and Railroad heavies on the south side of Jamaica Plains pinned down. Garvey commands them to stay in cover while they deal with Johnny first. When they’ve done that, they focus their attention on Garrett.

Deacon is really ticked at himself for forgetting to deal with Savage Zac’s power armour. Just seeing the thing in action is rallying The Claws because they happen to think that it _is_ Savage Zac, and Deacon is not going to let the huge effort it was to kill the man go to waste. He scrambles up to Captain Garvey, keeping low to avoid the laser fire. 

“I thought you were going to handle that!” Garvey says, voice frustrated and strained. 

“Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, I forgot about it.”

“Only you could fucking _forget_ about power armour, Deacon,” Glory shouts from the other side of the building. He ignores her.

“I do, however, know how to destroy one that’s in use.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, man,” Garvey snaps. 

“It’s a T-51 model, which means that the fusion core isn’t shielded, unlike the more advanced versions of power armour,-” _like Enclave power armour,_ he thinks, “-if you’re a good enough shot, you can shoot the core.”

Garvey looks at him like he’s crazy. “That’ll cause a massive explosion!”

“Well, massive is maybe overstating it a bit, don’t you think? You did just casually explode a mini-nuke not too long ago.”

Laser fire hits the building they’re taking cover behind and Garvey shoves him backward in his attempt to lean away from it. _Right,_ Deacon thinks, _talk faster._

“I can take it out.”

“What?”

Deacon grabs the Captain’s arm so he’s forced to look at Deacon and hear all the words he’s about to say. Out of the corner of his eye, Deacon sees Glory approach.

“The core is not shielded, so I can pull it out. Without the fusion core, the armour won’t work and he’ll be stuck. Just draw his fire and keep him distracted.”

“Now you’re just talking crazy,” Garvey says. 

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “And the suggestion of shooting the fusion core was within the realm of normal?”

“I say we shoot it,” Glory chimes in.

“You want to shoot everything,” Deacon replies.

“And you want to stab everything. We all gotta have our hobbies, Dee.”

Okay, fair point. 

Garvey gives him a long look. In the darkness, Deacon can only see it in the muzzle and laser fire flashes. 

“Is this another thing that I have to agree to that may get you killed?” The Captain asks. 

Deacon grins. “Well, I survived that last thing, so…yeah, why not?”

“Barely,” Glory mutters and Deacon jabs her with his elbow. The Captain doesn’t need to be reminded of that right now.

Garvey sighs. “Fine. _Fine._ Go. We’ll draw his fire.”

Deacon slips away. 

Bloody Garrett is stomping around in the street in front of the parking lot, while Garvey and company are taking cover behind the house of horror next to the church, the gravestones, and in the doorway of the church. Others are scattered further along, but they are mostly focused on fighting with the other surviving members of The Deathclaws.

Deacon runs along the back of the houses, trusting that he isn’t going to trip over some long forgotten lawn ornament and end up in the heap on the ground. He gets down a few and then runs across the street where the fighting is the weakest. He surprises a couple of Claws as he runs between two buildings and takes out one with the butt of his rifle and the other with a quick gunshot. Finishing the other off with an afterthought. 

He continues down until he hits the street that will bring him up to the main bunk house and crosses at a sprint. Now he’s back against the brick wall where he was when Georgie showed him the force of her right-hook. Deacon crouches low and slips along the building, his leg twinging in pain until he’s at the stairs that will take him to the parking lot. He ascends slowly, checking for any movement in the strobe-like lighting of the muzzle flashes and laser fire. 

There’s one Claw taking cover next to the entrance to the parking lot. Deacon gently props his rifle against the cinderblock wall and creeps up behind the man, unsheathing his knife as he goes. The slight crunch of the loose stones of cement surface under Deacon’s boots is covered by the sounds of gun and laser fire, and Deacon gets right behind the Claw without him know Deacon’s there. The man turns slightly just as Deacon rams his knife into his neck, probably sensing something was behind him, but not fast enough to prevent death. 

Deacon drags the quickly dying man back from the entrance, he doesn’t want someone catching sight of the fallen Claw and alerting Garrett that there’s someone behind him before he has the opportunity to move. Deacon takes the position the Claw was in and peers around the corner of the cinderblock wall. Garrett is moving closer to the church; the wooden doors are starting to splinter under the night’s assault, leaving the Minutemen there vulnerable. He can’t see any other Deathclaws, but it’s very likely they are in cover in the area and will see him approach Garrett. 

He can’t wait, though, not with Garrett stomping toward those Minutemen.

Deacon darts out of cover and runs across the street. There are a few shouts from the Claws of: “Boss!”, but Garrett doesn’t heed them —he’s not the boss they’re looking for. The Minutemen and the Railroad heavies are keeping the Deathclaws down will Deacon rushes for Garrett. The man is moving in a steady forward motion, so it’s not like Deacon has to worry around getting a good grip on the core. 

He pauses a moment directly behind Garrett and waits for the man to stop and reload his weapon. When he does, Deacon snatches the fusion core out of the casing, with a hefty tug, and the armour immediately slumps. Without power to control the mechanical hands of the armour, Garrett can no longer fire his gun or move. He’ll also suffocate if the helmet isn’t disengaged, but they can wait for that until the rest of the Claws are taken care of. The armour has about five minutes of air before that happens, plus the three or so it takes to actually lose consciousness, and the five or so after that for brain damage to really take hold. 

They’ve got lots of time. 

After the power armour goes down, it doesn’t take long for the Minutemen and Railroad heavies to mop the floor with the remaining Deathclaws. So much for their superior numbers; they were no match for a properly trained force. When they’ve dealt with that, Captain Garvey, Lieutenant Davis, and Glory all line up in front of the slumped power armour and Deacon releases the clamps on the helmet. He pulls the heavy chunk of steel off Garrett’s head and the man immediately starts coughing violently as he forces air back into his lungs. 

Deacon set the helmet on the ground and hangs a lantern off the end of Garrett’s laser rifle. He waves slightly as Garrett stops coughing and the man snarls, looking like he wants to launch himself at Deacon, but unable to. 

“You’re lucky we took that fucking thing off,” Glory growls. “I was all for letting you suffocate in that metal prison, you bastard.”

Captain Garvey, however, was not, and even though Deacon agrees with Glory on this one, Garvey is a useful friend to have and he’d rather not burn that bridge over the death of one asshole. Garrett is not worth it. 

“Zac was right about you,” Garrett says to Deacon, voice full of hate. “We shouldn’t have trusted you.”

Deacon shrugs. “Well, Savage Zac is dead, so what he thought doesn’t matter anymore.”

Garrett looks away from Deacon to Glory, Captain Garvey and Lt. Davis.

“You shouldn’t put your trust in him either,” he says.

Glory snorts and shakes her head. Garvey is impassive. Davis rolls her eyes.

“Don’t think he’s capable of betrayal? Just look around you. Look at this destruction. One man tore us apart, pitted us against each other. Brilliant, really.” Garrett’s eyes slide back to Deacon in reluctant admiration, before he focuses his attention back on the other three. “He’s done it before, yeah? He’s too good at lying and pretending for this to be his first time. Can you honestly tell me he’s never lied to you? Never done something questionable? Never been accused of having allegiances elsewhere?”

“Shut up,” Glory snaps. “Shut the fuck up.”

Garvey and Davis shift uncomfortably. Deacon crosses his arms and tries not to look away from Garrett. This is hitting a little too close to home for Glory and he imagines that Garvey is thinking about the little game of make-believe they played for the benefit of the Claws. Garrett is a little too observant for Deacon’s liking. 

Garrett laughs lowly. “That’s what I thought. Fool me once? Shame on me. Fool me twice?” He trails off and leaves them to fill in the blanks. Then, he looks at Deacon again. “You killed her, didn’t you? Not the DCS.”

Deacon nods. 

“Why?”

“What does it matter?”

“I want to know if…if it was for a good reason.”

Deacon looks down at his boots for a moment before he settles his gaze back on Garrett.

“She killed a friend. Then she tried to kill someone I- another friend.”

Garrett closes his eyes and nods. Deacon can’t imagine that he missed the way he stumbled over that second part. Hell, they all probably noticed it. 

“She was a synth,” Deacon says after a moment, unsure what prompted him to reveal that. Maybe he thinks it’ll be more of a comfort. 

But all Garrett says is: “I know.”

There’s a brief discussion among the Minutemen about what to do with Garrett. Finally, the Captain decides to take him into to custody and transport him down to Quincy. Deacon didn’t realize there was another form of justice aside from Wasteland justice, but if Garvey wants to trek down to Quincy with his laser musket trained on Garrett’s back, that’s no business of his. Glory is pissed off and doesn’t say another word all night. He suspects she’s angry for a number of reasons, but all of them revolving around Garrett. 

Deacon pries open the grip of the mechanical hand on the power armour and removes Garrett’s laser rifle from its grip. Then, with a company of Minutemen pointing their charged weapons at his head, Deacon reinserts the fusion core and Garrett steps out of the armour. Garvey has three Minutemen escort Garrett back to the camp, while the rest (with Deacon’s help) scrounge up some more camping and bedding supplies to house the Railroad heavies and himself for the rest of the night. 

Before they call it quits, Deacon asks that one more mini-nuke be dropped on the arena. He wants to make sure Mammy is good and dead and it is utterly destroyed. Lieutenant Davis is only too happy to comply with his request and the two of them head up to the overpass watch position to revel in its destruction.

The quarters in the Minutemen camp are cramped, even with the rotating guard for the night watch and to guard Garrett, but Deacon sleeps better than he has in weeks.

Deacon, Glory and the rest of the heavies help the Minutemen pull up camp the next day. It takes them most of the morning to break everything down, haul the things they don’t need and deposit them in the church, take the supplies from the church, and pack everything else. By the time Garvey heads into University Point to hire a caravan to carry their things, the camp is utterly dissolved. The only way to tell they were here at all, is the campfire markings in the dirt and the trails that have been worn in the ground from constant use. 

Glory and the heavies head out after Garvey leaves for University Point. He still wishes there was something more they could or would do for the town, but Deacon gets it. They just don’t have the manpower, and now that the Minutemen are leaving, there’s nothing for it. University Point will just have to survive on its own, or better yet, disperse. Glory doesn’t have much sympathy for the town, but Deacon hates the idea that may die if Kellogg can’t find the information he’s looking for. Maybe he’ll just move one, but somehow, Deacon images that University Point will be a lesson for the rest of the Commonwealth. 

He can’t protect an entire town by himself. 

“Did you at least tell them to evacuate the town?” Deacon asks as Glory hauls her massive minigun up and throws its strap over her shoulder. 

“I didn’t tell them a damn thing. I think Gerald said something to that effect before I sent him away, but frankly Dee, I don’t care.”

Glory’s temper has been short since last night, especially with him. Garrett’s words really cut her.

Deacon sighs, nods, and reminds himself that the entirety of the Commonwealth is _not_ his responsibility.

“See you at HQ,” she says after a moment.

“Eventually,” he hedges.

“Yeah, you need some damn time off, but I expect you back in a few months, got it?”

Deacon gives her small smile. “Yes, mom.”

She punches his arm with a smirk. “Shut the hell up, and get a new damn face. I can’t stand lookin’ at this one anymore.”

“You and me both.”

While the Minutemen finish last minute packing, Deacon heads back down to Jamaica Plains. During the fight last night, he doesn’t remember seeing Sawbones among The Deathclaws and he wants to check the bodies to see whether or not the man made it out alive. He wanders through the town, turning over bodies as he comes across them, picking through their pockets for anything useful, but nearly an hour passes and he doesn’t find Bones. 

Deacon makes a stop in at the clinic. It’s been mostly picked clean of useful supplies by the Minutemen, but Deacon’s not there for that. He heads to the back of the house where the step ladder leads to the loft. 

The room upstairs is sparsely furnished and looks utterly unlived in. If he hadn’t known that someone had, in fact, lived here, he might say it hasn’t seen use in a long time. The small bed is neatly made, the space is clean and nothing seems to be out of place. Deacon pokes around looking for anything left behind, but the dresser is empty and there’s nothing on the nightstand; even the area under the bed is clean. 

It’s a strange contrast to the mess that the clinic is downstairs. With its blood-soaked floors and unmade beds. Deacon looks around the room with a frown but shakes his head and leaves. There’s nothing to be found here, Sawbones is obviously long gone and there’s no telling when he actually left. Or where he went. 

Deacon might come across the man again in the future, or he might not. No way to know until it actually happened.

When Garvey arrives back with the caravan in tow, the Minutemen pack the brahmin with all the things they can’t carry, and the group, along with Deacon and their prisoner Garrett, sets out for Quincy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I’ll divide these two parts better after those of you with subscriptions read it, cause damn. This part is long.
> 
> Oddly enough, Johnny was supposed to live and not Garrett, but it just worked better this way. *shrugs* Seriously, sometimes I have no idea how this sh*t happens.
> 
> And I think I’m going to need a master lists of Nick’s after this. Real Nick, Hallucination Nick, Memory Nick, Fantasy Nick, etc.
> 
> Also, I bet you thought it wasn’t possible to get a _’King and I’_ reference in a smut scene. Haha. (side note: Yul Brynner is drool worthy. I seriously can’t use the word ‘etcetera’ without hearing his voice in my head.)
> 
> ALSO, the next chapter is one I have been _dying_ to write for what feels like ages now, so I am supper excited for it!!! Like so much I can't even properly convey it in text. *hyperventilates in excitement*


	14. Beware the Ides of March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If thou remember'st not the slightest folly_   
>  _that ever love did make thee run into,_   
>  _thou hast not loved._
> 
> _-All's Well that Ends Well (2.4.36)_

March is always a slow month for the detective business. 

February too, really, but even though February is cold, Nick can usually find work in town. Little things like tab disputes, or petty theft, or missing pets keep him occupied even when the rest of Diamond City has firmly hunkered down to wait for spring. After all, the cold doesn't bother him. 

What does bother him is the melting wet of March, and how the month can’t seem to make up its damn mind over whether or not it wants to still be winter, or move onto spring.

March is like that middle girl in a group of three. February is her stuck-up bitch friend —icy and perfect, and April is the fun one everyone loves, but March? Well, she's neither cool enough to properly pull off bitch, nor is she warm enough to be considered fun. She's a terrible combination of sort of cold and mostly wet, and Nick has too many exposed parts these days to amicably tolerate the wet. 

However, he supposes, that for this year it’s okay for March to be slow. Diamond City has seen a bit too much action lately with the death of Tom and the ‘infiltration’ of the DCS, and things are tense around town. Ellie keeps saying she wishes it were busier because she hates having so much time on her hands -she doesn’t want the down time to think about Tom. As she puts it: “I do enough of that when I lie in bed at night.”

However, Nick thinks she’d crack under the extra pressure right now. 

She does her best not to let anything seem different or changed during business hours, but he knows her mind wanders constantly now and she forgets half the things she’s supposed to be doing. Ellie used to type at the speed of light on that old Carlisle typewriter, but these days he’s lucky if she finishes a report by the end of the day. She hardly smiles and doesn’t laugh; Ellie’s lost her fire. 

They’ve been through this together once before, so he knows she’ll pull through, but Nick isn’t going to ask anything of her that she can’t handle. 

It hurts him to see her like this again. It hurts him that he wasn’t able to stop Tom from trying to distract that woman. It hurts that Tom is _gone._

It’s a hell of a price to pay, but Nick hopes that Diamond City learns from this. That they realize that the troubles of the Commonwealth aren’t just things that happen ‘out there’ or to other ‘less secure’ settlements. The Wall isn’t a catch all for everything. The Commonwealth’s problems with synths, kidnappings, and murderous thugs are this city’s problems as well. 

Ellie’s not the only one reeling from Tom’s death. Danny Sullivan is too. The kid used to be a cheerful bundle of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy group of guards, but Nick is lucky if he can get a smile from him these days. He and Tom were good friends, and Nick is pretty sure this is the first death Danny has had to deal with -he was born and raised right here in Diamond City, been safe and sound inside her Walls all his life. Danny’s taking it hard because the kid is still young enough to believe that he and the people around him are invincible. 

Now he knows they’re not. 

Nick has this niggling sensation that Danny wants to tell him something about that night, but every time it looks like the kid might start to say something, he clams up and looks slightly guilty. Tom looked the same way that night when he came to get Nick; he wouldn’t say anything either. It’s bothering Nick, and it will until he finds out what they’re hiding.

Speaking of other things that bother him…

The Maltese Falcon glares at Nick from his perch on the corner of the desk. He peers at it over his _Tesla Science_ magazine; titled 'Will Robots Rule the World?' (that's Ellie's sense of humor for you; she thought it was quite funny when she spotted it in Percy's junk last night and it’s the first time she’s smiled in a week so Nick can’t not read it). It's not really the bird that bothers Nick -it's just a lead statue and the kid was right about it being a helluva a thing to have an old piece of Americana. 

No, it's not the bird.

What bothers Nick is, that every time he looks at the thing he thinks of the fun they had retrieving it, the awful (and hilarious) Humphrey Bogart impression the kid keep doing all the while, and that inevitably leads to other thoughts of the things they did while Deacon was in Diamond City and the roller coaster that has been their friendship. Which ultimately leads to, and gets in stuck, in the lows. One particular low that Nick has been trying to come to terms with and has yet to.

It would probably be a lot easier to set it aside and let it become another memory on a hard drive full of them if the kid had never let Nick kiss him in the first place. If he'd just bolted like he looked like he was going to do. Or if he'd just let Nick kiss him and never responded; just waited for Nick to get the message that he wasn't interested in that. 

But no. It didn't happen like that. Deacon had responded with all the fervor and fire Nick thought he would after they danced around each other for almost a year, and for a brief moment, Nick was certain he'd gotten him. He was sure, that despite what the kid said at the precinct, he wanted to stay and he wanted to stay _with Nick._

But like anything good Nick has ever had, in this life and the life of the Nick since passed, it comes with the kind of bad that makes you wish nothing good ever happens again. 'Cause how do you stand that kind of heartache over and over again?

 _'Wish you were mine, Valentine.'_

He keeps repeating that phrase over and over, keeps replaying it in his head. It's the only thing he has to cling to. A glimmer of hope that that kiss was where the truth lay and not in the words at the precinct because Nick has never wanted anyone like this. 

Not as a synth, and to be honest he's not sure about The Nick That Came Before. 

All his memories of that Nick are faded and warped. Like photograph left too long in the sun. Jenny is the one bright spot, the one photograph tucked under the others that had been spared the damage the others have seen. Nick remembers a lot of things about her: the way her smile lit her face, the light and easy way she moved, the ringing note of her laugh, the endless sketch commissions that used to litter her apartment like autumn leaves. 

That Nick loved Jenny; it’s clear from the cherished way her memory lives on in the hardware in his head, but That Nick didn't want her the way _he_ wants Deacon. Maybe it's only because he can't have him, or maybe because he's a mystery that Nick hasn't quite figured out yet, or maybe The Nick That Was didn't appreciate what he had until it was gone, and he's trying to learn from that mistake.

Nick laughs at himself then because he can hear the kid in his head telling him to stop considering himself as two different people. _'No Nick 1 and Nick 2, remember?'_

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick mutters to himself. “No Cat in the Hat either.”

“You say something, Nick?” Ellie asks from her desk, her fingers momentarily pausing on the keys of her typewriter. 

“Hmm? Oh, just takin' issue with one of these articles. Nothin' really.”

She smiles slightly. “Good read, then?”

Nick nods, but says: “He'd like it better.”

“Well, I didn't buy it for _him;_ I bought it for you. But if you're going to be all depressed about it-” she fishes around in her desk drawers “-here.” Ellie holds out the latest issue of _'The Wasteland Survival Guide'._

Nick looks at it for a moment, but before he even has the chance to say anything Ellie snaps it back.

“Damnit. I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have— I mean, I should have remembered.”

“Don't,” Nick says. “I should be gettin' over it anyways. He's not comin’ back.”

“Well, I refuse to believe that. He'll be back. Even if I have to hang that stupid lantern myself and bring him back.” She sighs and leans back in her chair. “One of us should get a happy ending.”

Nick gives her a sad smile. He knows that no matter what happens, Ellie will always have his back; she'll always be in his corner. Even if that means he has to listen to her occasionally ask him what the hell is wrong with him, he can live with that. Hell, what are friends for but to pick you up, dust you off, and tell you that the next time you do something that stupid they'll leave you down in the dirt a little longer so you can think about the level of your screw up.

“Dire straights only, Ellie,” he says. “You don't want to be the girl who cried wolf, do you?”

She frowns. “I wouldn't be. Isn't a broken heart enough?” Ellie closes her eyes and lets out a shaky breath. “People die of that, ya know.”

“Not you,” Nick replies. “Not me. After all the things that the ‘Wealth has thrown at us, I’m not about to die of a little heartache. And neither are you. You’re stronger than that, Ellie.”

“Really? ‘Cause let me tell you, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like—”

Whatever else Ellie is about to say, is lost to the agency door being shoved open and the swath of cool air that’s let in.

A tall man, dressed in a heavy winter coat that moves stiffly and jangles slightly as the edges of it hit the metal door of the agency, enters and pulls off his wide-brimmed hat. As he holds it in one hand, Nick notes that the one side of it has been tacked up. His hair is dark, curly, and trimmed close to his head. 

Ellie stands from her desk. “Hi there,” she says. “Lucky for you the detective is currently in house, so just sit down and we can discuss your problem.”

The man gives her small smile and steps further into the office but doesn’t take her up on her offer of a seat. Now that he’s turned to more fully face them, Nick can see the blue armband on his far arm and the bandolier of fusion cells.

“I’m actually looking for you,” he says. “Ellie Perkins, right?”

Ellie nods, her smile starting to slide off her face in question. Nick sets aside his magazine and stands as well. 

“Preston Garvey,” he says, flicking his eyes between them. “Commonwealth Minutemen.”

Ellie and Nick look at one another in some surprise. The last time Diamond City saw a Minuteman inside its Walls was back in 2280 before they lost The Castle. 

“What can I do for you…?”

“Captain.”

“What can I do for you, Captain Garvey?”

He looks down at the hat between his hands. “Well, Ms. Perkins, I came to apologize and offer my condolences.”

Ellie is completely taken aback. “I..uh— What?” her voice wavers a little. 

“The Minutemen were working a joint operation with another group and we were warned by an undercover operative that The Deathclaws were likely to be watching this place.” Captain Garvey twirls the hat in his hands as he speaks, then looks back up at Ellie. “I asked for a couple Minutemen to be stationed nearby, but was denied by my superior and dropped the issue, even though I knew I should've just taken the matter into my own hands.” He sighs, anger and frustration evident. “The DCS were caught off guard by the situation that later occurred and I know that couple DCS guards died that night. One of them was…yours.”

“Tom,” she says, unshed tears in her eyes. Garvey nods.

 _The Deathclaws,_ Nick thinks, _again with those guys._ Suddenly the accusation the two men made against the man they killed makes more sense.

“I want you to know that you needn’t worry about that group harming any more people,” Garvey says, “We made short work of them a couple weeks ago. I know that may not be that big of a comfort, considering, but-”

“No,” Ellie interrupts. “It is. Too many people never get justice and I’m glad they’re gone -we saw first hand what they were capable of last year. Tom..." she pauses as a couple tears roll down her cheeks, "Tom wouldn’t have wasted his life on a worthless cause.”

There’s a moment of silence after Ellie’s words. Then, the Captain nods to them and puts his hat back on, meaning to head out. 

“Before you go, Captain,” Nick says and Garvey looks at him in question. “This operative you mentioned, is he the one that came to Diamond City that night?”

“Yeah. He took it pretty hard; I think he felt he failed to keep The Deathclaws in check.”

“Do you know his name?”

Garvey glances at his boots before looking up to Nick. “I don’t think I should say. The group he’s part of prefer their secrecy.”

Nick and Ellie share another look before Nick says: “Alright, I won’t press you, Captain.”

Garvey nods in thanks and reaches for the door, only to have it opened hard into him and he stumbles back several steps into the cinderblock wall of the small entrance alcove. 

A heavily armoured woman steps into the agency, sparing Captain Garvey a momentary look of annoyance as she shuts the door behind her. She has reddish-blonde hair, that's shorn in a what most people consider a ‘raider’ hairstyle, as well as a few piercings in her ears and face. There are dirt and dust on her armour, and speckles of blood on her face. She's not tall, but if the width of her armour is any indications, she's well-built. 

If there were a picture definition of intimidating, Nick thinks she would be it. He thought the same thing last time he rolled through Goodneighbour and was met with her bulky frame blocking the door to Hancock’s lair.

Her name is Fahrenheit if he recalls correctly (and he usually does).

“Valentine,” she says, “you're wanted in Goodneighbour. Hancock sent me of behalf of Doctor Amari.”

He grabs his sidearm and holster even as he asks: “Somethin' wrong?”

Fahrenheit shrugs, the great plates of her pauldrons shifting like a wave. “Probably. Why else would I be here?”

Her attitude seems to suggest that whatever reason Amari has for asked Hancock to send someone to Diamond City, is something she's not privy to. However, she’s still relatively new to Goodneighbour. Give it a year and she'll be Hancock's most trusted -she already the most relied upon member of the Watch.

Nick swings his trench coat on and crushes out the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray on his desk. Ellie has been trying to get him to remember to not leave a lit one around (and for the most part, he does) because there’s a lot of paper in this joint. It's a tinderbox just waiting for the right spark. 

“Send word if you're going to be gone longer than a day,” Ellie says as she hands Nick his hat; he nods. “And be careful.” 

Nick throws her a smirk as they walk out the door, “I'm always careful.”

As the door closes, he can hear Ellie addressing Captain Garvey again. She’ll probably make him stick around while she makes food for his trip back to Quincy. It’ll be good for her; she needs the distraction.

The Diamond City guards eye Fahrenheit's armour and machine gun with cautious distrust. 

They won't say anything to her within earshot of Nick because if Nick and someone are walking through town together, it usually means they're on a case; the DCS are pretty good about letting him have freedom to work. However, he can feel the way they tense up as they two of them go by and Nick knows that the guards don’t have their fingers very far away from their triggers anymore.

The trek to Goodneighbour is never easy, but between increased DCS patrols around the outskirts of Diamond City, and The Neighbourhood Watch keeping the streets around their town clear for visitors, it’s certainly safer. Plus, the number of feral attacks have decreased to almost nonexistent and raiders don't often stake a claim to any area those two groups patrol. Mutants, on the other hand, are a constant problem, and there is, of course, The Swan, that travelers have to watch for. 

Nick knows the area around Diamond City, and Fahrenheit knows the area around Goodneighbour. Between the two of them, they manage to shave 15 minutes off the usual hour walk, and soon the neon glow of the town's signs beckon them inside her walls.

It used to be that Nick never liked having to go to Goodneighbour. 

When Vic ran the show, it was a dark alley and a shank away from being a raider’s nest. You could never trust anyone; it was best if you kept your gun in hand, and if you had someplace inside your clothing to stash your caps you might actually make it from the main gate to the Rexford Hotel and still have them all. These days, it’s still a far cry from Diamond City (Hancock isn't looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps), but it's a town of people who are no longer afraid of what the morning might bring after a chem-fuel night of terror; it’s a town that is starting to become a hub of commerce and where people no longer dread having to stop to resupply. Instead, they can enjoy its offerings under the understanding that it’s rougher than Diamond City but less raider-y than Bunker Hill.

It’s a Commonwealth success if there ever was one, and Nick likes that, even if he doesn't always agree with Hancock's methods.

Fahrenheit drops him at the doors to The Memory Den with instructions to swing by The Old State House when he's done; Hancock wants to know when the situation is successfully resolved. Nick raises an eyebrow at that, because, why does Hancock care? What's going on here?

Nick has never really cared for The Memory Den, in this life or the last, but in the here and now, he just doesn’t see the point in living a memory over and over again. Sure it may be a good one, but isn’t point of life to make _new_ good ones? If you always relived the best life ever was, you're stuck in the assumption that it will never be like that again. He really doesn’t understand why someone would spend their caps on this cheap thrill when you could spend it on things that will get you a real one.

Inside, Irma is perched on her couch -she’s always the perfect mix of indolent pleasure and posture-perfect ease; however, instead of her usual single TV screen, she has three different ones all set up in front of her. As Nick heads down the aisle to her platform, he notes that three of her four loungers are occupied. Her eyes flick up when she hears his shoes on the floor.

“Nick,” she says, husky voice a pleased purr. “Aren't you a sight for sore eyes.” 

Nick laughs. “Now I know that ain’t true. ‘Specially not since this.” He turns his head so she can see the gash from the deathclaw gauntlet.

“Good lord, detective,” she gasps, surprise evident in her voice. “What do they have you doing in that town? Yao guai removal?”

“Almost; just exchange ‘yao guai’ for ‘Deathclaw’ and you’d have it to a T.”

“You had better be joking.”

Nick shakes his head with a smirk.

Irma leans back with a huff. “You need a new job, hunny.”

“Ya think? Well, maybe you got a position open here. Monitor watchin’, maybe?” He gestures at the bank of TV’s in front of her.

“We're certainly a full house here today, and Amari has got her hands full downstairs. I'm quite capable of watching and making sure nothing goes wrong here, and as much as I’d like to put you to work for me-” she rakes his form with a slow once over; always the performer, that one “-you'd better skedaddle on down and see her. It's a time-sensitive issue.”

Nick nods and starts toward the back. “I'll let you put me to work some other time, hmm?”

“You'd better, detective,” is her throaty reply.

\- - - - -

He finds Doctor Amari downstairs in her lab.

Nicks steps are quiet as he descends the stairs. He's had a long time to practice being light on his feet and stepping quietly despite being heavier than man of his height and build. Gen 2 synths are heavy with their steel frames and fusion cores, and Nick is heavier than even them because of his synthetic skin and sensor mesh. As he rounds the corner into Amari's lab, he finds her attacking her databank terminal with muttered curses. 

Nick's been down here once before to sit in a lounger and have his memories picked apart. 

He used to have a lot of trouble seeing the past slide over the present whenever he came across a place that Nick the Police Detective once knew. It was like looking at a double exposed image. At first, it was an occasional thing, but as time passed it got worse and worse until Nick could hardly go anywhere without some of the past bleeding through. Amari was an accidental find after chasing another runaway to Goodneighbour's door. 

She fixed his hardware and explained the problem, and though Nick has a way with computers, the sort of tech that Amari deals in is above him -Deacon probably would have understood her technobabble. He thinks it had something to do with the way he was filling new memories and accessing the old ones simultaneously, but there were a lot more words in her explanation.

Amari never elaborated on how she seemed to know so much about synths and their technology, and Nick decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. However, perhaps he should have pressed a little harder in light of what he finds waiting for him down in her lab.

The room’s two loungers are the same as ever, but this time, one is occupied. A slender man, bordering on malnourished yet clearly muscled, is lying in the right lounger; unmoving in his memory sleep. 

There a few of his things piled next to the lab’s couch, namely a lever-action rifle that seems in good repair, a baseball bat that's seen better days, a battered backpack that looks familiar, as well as a tool belt that Nick might have sworn he'd seen before, if it had a plasma pistol to go with it. A beat up leather jacket is tossed over one arm and Nick moves closer to touch it. 

It looks just like the kid’s jacket; though it's seen a few battles since Nick saw it last. Namely something with large, sharp claws that tore a large gash in the back of it. It’s been crudely sewn back together and he imagines that Charlie Fallon would have a fit if he saw the repair. Nick shakes his head, it isn’t him. He's seeing Deacon everywhere these days.

Nick turns back and raps on the door, as Amari hasn’t yet noticed him. She perks up immediately, though, and swivels in her chair. She breaks into a tense smile when she sees it’s him.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Valentine,” Amari says and stands; walking the room in a few short steps.

“Sure thing, doc. Slow day at the office. Though you should probably let me in on what the problem is. Fahrenheit wasn't sure what you needed.”

There's a look of confusion that slides over her face for a moment, then it clears. “Ah, that's one of Hancock's Watch, correct? I confess I can't keep track of them. Irma is better at that than I am.”

“Then, I suppose it's a good thing you two are partners.” Nick usually tries to avoid saying that word aloud, but it just slipped out there. “What can I do for you, doc?”

“It might take me a moment to explain, but I’ll try to keep it as condensed as possible; time is short. I’ve asked you here because I’ve need of your hardware, Mr. Valentine. This young man-” she gestures to the occupied lounger “-has been locked inside his memories for the last two days and I am at my wit's end trying to release him.”

Nicks eyebrows raise. Two days, hell, much longer and the man will be dead from dehydration. “Why can't you release him? Lounger malfunctioning?”

“Oh, I wish it were as simple as that. I could fix that. But this? This is something far more insidious, and it’s something I’ve never seen before. It would be fascinating if it weren't killing him.” Amari rubs her face with one hand, she looks incredibly tired. “From what I can tell, based on the brainwave activity that is being recorded, there is some sort of…mnemonic impression on this young man's mind that is railroading my attempts to do anything but watch as he declines further and further.

“That _thing_ has him trapped inside his own head and he has descended so far into his own memories and has such a strong lock them, that I am unable to get any sort of live feed to even begin to understand how I might wake him.” 

“Don't you have an emergency shut off for these kinda things?”

Amari waves him off. “Yes of course, but in his current state brain damage is a very real possibility. He's been through so much I simply can't destroy his mind to save his body, and yet, if I do nothing, he will die.”

“So why me?”

“Because I'm afraid that whatever this thing is, it may do to another organic mind what it’s doing to him. I can't risk someone else, but you don't have an organic brain, Mr. Valentine. You are my last resort.”

This isn’t the first time Nick has been asked to help based solely on his synth status. First time he's been asked because of his brains and not his brawn, though. Kind of nice, actually. However, this sort of thing is pretty intimate; shifting through someone else’s memories, seeing the world through their eyes, looking at the things that have shaped the person they've become. He can't imagine Amari would ask him to help someone undeserving, but he needs to know a bit more about them if he's going to go diving through their memories. 

“Who is this guy?” Nick asks. 

There must be some of that hesitant wariness in his tone because Amari gives Nick a long look before she steps around him to shut the door. 

“I trust you can keep a secret,” she says as she steps back up beside the lounger.

Nick nods.

“This young man, and myself, are members of The Railroad.-” Nick's eyebrows raise. Huh, that explains a lot “-He recently returned from a mission that took a great toll on him and I... _demanded_ that he return for some help. You might say that this situation is my fault.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “You've probably met him before, though you may not know his name.”

No...

“He goes by Deacon, at least with us. He spent time in Diamond City last year.”

Nick stops breathing for a moment and looks back at the gear pulled next to the couch. Familiar and yet different. No vest. No plasma pistol. 

“Yeah,” Nick croaks, “I know him.” 

Amari gives him a look. “Better than I thought, I see. Well...good. If you’re recognizable, he's less likely to try and shove you out of his memories.” She turns and head back to the monitoring station. 

Nick gives a wheezing laugh. “You don't know him very well, do you, doc?”

“I'm afraid that’s a luxury we don’t have in our organization. Time is short, Mr. Valentine, are you willing to help?”

 _To help this kid?_ Nick thinks, _Anything for him._

“Yes,” Nick says and starts pulling his trench coat off. He tosses it on the couch next to the kid's jacket and his gun and holster follow. Then, he props his hat on the end of the rifle to keep it from getting crushed.

Amari opens the second lounger and Nick crawls inside. He settles himself with a few shuffled movements. If the chair didn't lean so far back, he might mistake it for one of those showy Corvega Cherry Bombs. If any were still drivable, that is. Amari crouches down and looks at Nick through the open hatch. 

“I am going to try and keep in contact with you,” she says. “Unfortunately, I have no idea what you might expect so be on your guard. If we push too hard, Deacon will fight us, but hopefully, he trusts you enough to let you find him.”

“You and me both, doc.” 

She nods and leans into the pod. “This is going to require a slight adjustment on my end because your brain isn't organic, but —forgive me, Mr. Valentine—” she presses a section of his skin just bellow the curve of his skull and a piece of it falls into her hand, “—it isn't anything I won't be able to handle.”

Amari pockets the disk and has Nick lean forward slightly. Then, she grabs a thick cable and plugs it into the back of his neck. He starts a little as the sensory mesh is disturbed. 

“Sorry,” she says. “You require a direct connection.” Then, she stands and closes the lounger on Nick. “Count backward from ten, Mr. Valentine.” 

“10, 9, 8—” there's a jolt of electricity that passes from the lounger to Nick's brain and he jumps slightly. The screen in front of him flickers. “—7, 6—” Then, the whole world flickers… 

…and goes dark.

\- - - - -

Nick blinks, and blinks again. 

His vision is sliding in and out of focus, but he can sort of make out a landscape surrounding him. It's brown and dreary but has an odd green tint to it. He closes his eyes and tells himself to relax, his coolant pump is racing slightly from the electrical jolt —though, for some reason, it feels like it’s a heart knocking against his ribs. He can feel how different this place is, the dreamy quality of it. How the air is heavy and the noises dim; it's like feeling the world through a cotton blanket. Nick opens his eyes again. 

The world solidifies.

The green tint is _dust;_ a fine film that covers everything. Nick looks up and notes that the sky isn't spared the same treatment; green sliding strangely over the blue, making it look muggy and dirty. Even the clouds look faintly green. It's nothing like the Commonwealth and Nick thinks of that conversation he had with Deacon about people not appreciating the sky. Is this what he meant? Was he making a comparison between this sky and the one in the ‘Wealth? 

In the distance, Nick can see the crumbling ruins of a town long destroyed, and rocky outcrops that poke out of the ground like the carcass of some great beast. 

He frowns. There's nothing here. Nick turns in a slow circle, looking for something that might help him. He catches a glimmer of something out of the corner of his eye and turns completely around to face it. He finds a huge wall of welded steel in front of him. It’s mostly rusted, but some areas still catch what sunlight manages to filter through the green-tinted sky. Nick looks up and sees the remnants of two airplane jet engines poised above the wall and a small outcropping where a person might stand. 

"Wel-come to Meg-a-ton."

Nick starts slightly and glances to his right. A protectron is standing just in front of the wall. Then, the huge engines start-up and begin pulling the wall up and back. Their incredible noise blocks out all others for a moment until the wall's sections are pulled back into place. The protectron turns to face Nick fully.

"The bomb is per-fect-ly safe. We pro-mise. Ya-ll en-joy your stay now."

Nick gives the robot an incredulous look. How is he supposed to enjoy his stay in a place that has a _bomb_ in it? Promise or no promise. The protectron turns back to its original position now that it has passed along its message. Nick shakes his head and continues on inside. Several feet past the initial gate, there's a second one that has been propped open by an old milk crate and Nick's slips in through the gap. 

There's a large downward slope in front of Nick with metal slats dug into it that act a set of stairs and he begins to carefully pick his way down them. Around him, Nick can see several buildings built on the sides of the slope and on top of one another.

“Mr. Valentine? Can you hear me?” Amari's voice echoes all around him, adding to the dream-like quality of this place.

“Yeah. Loud and clear,” Nick replies as he glances around what is clearly a town. The further he descends the more of it he sees. 

“Where are you?”

“A town called Megaton. At least according to the robot stationed outside the gates.”

“A whole town? You see it all?”

“Yeah. Not as large as Diamond City, but it's got that ramshackle feel to it. It's built in some sort of hole with metal buildings piled one on top of another, sorta like stairs. There’s catwalks crisscrossin’ everywhere, and-” Nick reaches the bottom of the slope and gives an incredulous laugh, “-a bomb in the center of town.”

It's not a hole, he realizes, _it's a crater._ The town’s name makes a lot more sense now.

“Good heavens, a bomb? Well, I suppose we can be thankful that it's only a memory. Where on earth would such a place be?”

“My best guess? The Capital Wasteland.” 

Amari is silent for a time and Nick isn't sure what she's doing; maybe checking the kid's status.

He gazes at the town, turning carefully in place. 

There’s a large house at the top of the crater, near the entrance to town, that has a neon sign on its wall. DAD, it says. Below that, a smaller building with a bar out front and a few funky looking Chinese symbols has a sign that says: AMATA. Nick keeps turning. To his left, high on the lip of the crater is another large building; it has a sign that sticks out past the catwalks so it's visible from the center of town. It says VAULT 112. Directly in front of the bomb, there’s a building that's listing slightly to the left and has a Children of Atom symbol above it. Its neon sign says THE BROTHERHOOD. Lastly, to his right, a small house, tiny compared to the rest, and the only one resting directly on the ground of the crater has a sign that says THE DEATHCLAWS.

That last one makes him frown.

“Deacon's vitals are spiking, Mr. Valentine,” Amari says suddenly; her voice even, but stressed. “I'll have to leave you while I stabilize him. You must find his conscious self in there; we are rapidly running out of time.”

Then, she's gone. The town warps slightly at her departure, but it is its normal self after a moment.

Nick look around the town again. The buildings must hold memories. The ones with the names maybe hold important ones? He’s not sure, but the building at the top of the crater marked: ‘DAD’ draws his interest and he wants to investigate further. 

“Mr. Valentine?” a young voice suddenly calls from behind him. Nick turns in surprise and spots a girl, no more than ten, sitting atop the bomb. “What a lovely surprise! The good doctor must be quite desperate to bring you here, but I'm glad. I'll have _so_ much more fun, now.”

Nick frowns. “Fun?”

She nods; her smile wide and her blonde hair bouncing. She looks the very picture of innocent and pure, in her pink dress and curls, but there’s something off about her. 

“I saw you looking at that one.-” she points to the building with ‘DAD’ on it. “-That's a good one. Chalk full of some of my favorite memories. Just open the door; you won't be disappointed. You might even learn something about 'Deacon'.” She laughs. “Well, go on!” she says when Nick doesn't move, “Don't be shy.”

Nick gives her one last look before he starts up the path to the entrance again. He can feel her eyes watch his progress and about half way up, he turns to look back at her, but she's gone. He can still feel her gaze, though. The path splits near the top and Nick follows it to the right. A metal platform is outside the building and there's a large outdoor table set up under a pergola that wraps around the house (it's about the only wood he's seen in town) with a few Christmas light strings woven through boards. A barbecue sits next to the building’s door and a pot with a tree is on the other side. Nick looks at it in some shock. He can't remember the last time he saw a tree with leaves that green. 

Clearly, this is someone's house. 

He steps up to the door; there's a window in it, but it's covered by a sun-bleached curtain so he can't see inside. With only the slightest hesitation, Nick turns the handle and steps inside. 

He finds himself somewhere dark, damp, and musty. Nick turns to look back at the door he came through, only to find it gone. _Huh, forward it is,_ he thinks and starts down a slight incline, his shoes clicking on the hard surface of the floor. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and when they do, he notes that he’s in a debris littered hallway. There’s a section of light spilling out on the floor ahead and Nick trots toward it.

Suddenly, he stops. His eyes don't need to adjust to the dark. He _sees_ in the dark. Everything should have a slight, silvery glow to it right now, but it doesn't. Nick double times it for the light. He comes to a corner and turns; the light is coming from a hallway past a room full of sandbag walls. He moves forward, cautious. This may be a memory, but he has no idea how these things might affect him. 

In the next hall (a wide space with a bank of computers at the far wall and a chemistry table nearby), Nick scans around but sees no immediate signs of life. He brings his right hand up, meaning to check his face, but stops and stares at it in shock. It looks _normal._ It’s not a metal claw but has skin over muscles and bone. He even has fingernails. Nick brings his other hand up and finds the same thing. He touches his face and finds no hole in his cheek, nor gash in his neck. He takes his hat off and finds hair. He almost laughs. _Hair!_

Nick wishes he could ask Amari what this is all about. 

Then, there's a noise behind him and Nick whirls. A man in a dark set of power armour is patrolling down the hall toward Nick. He doesn't seem to have noticed that Nick is just standing out here in the open, so Nick supposes that the kid's memories are sort like the ones he experiences from pre-war Nick: he can only watch as the movie reel advances; unable to interact, or change things. The man passes by Nick, the noise of his power armour whirling and creaking as he walks. 

Nick follows him. 

There’s dried blood along the floor and walls of this place, pock marks in the plaster from bullets, and black singe marks from lasers. None of it appears to be recent, but it still makes Nick wary of what is unfolding. The man in the power armour stops and looks down the hallway where it turns to the right and disappears into darkness. Nick follows his gaze and wishes he could see in the dark again. 

_Though,_ he thinks after a moment, _probably wouldn't matter if I could. Memory, remember Valentine? Not the real world._

The man turns and heads back the way he came, leaving Nick standing in the hallway alone. When the noise of the power armour quiets with distance, there's a sudden movement in the shadows of the hallway. Nick freezes and watches as a young man, with wild red hair, a hodgepodge collection of leather and metal armour over a battered looking vault suit (only those things are that blue), and a Pip-Boy emerge from the edge of the darkened hallway and dart into the light. He scrambles to a metal door on Nick's left; there's a plaque on the wall that says 'Rotunda'.

The young man spares the retreating power armour a glance, then slips in the door. Nick follows. 

Inside the room he's lost sight of the young man, but he hears an accented voice speaking through what sounds like an intercom, and he moves forward. The voice is echoing around the space, and the parts of the room that aren’t a large, circular, glassed laboratory of some sort, are polished white marble and they're bouncing the sound around the room. 

It isn't until he climbs the curved ramp up to the laboratory and sees a bronze statue peeking through the heavily irradiated water that's swirling in the chamber around it, that Nick realizes he's standing in the Jefferson Memorial.

He suddenly remembers the huge controversy that surrounded the Federal Government’s decision to turn the Jefferson Memorial into a water treatment plant. That's was during the height of The Great War and before they managed to liberate Anchorage, Alaska. Jobs were non-existent, land around the Potomac was non-existent, and the river itself was a polluted, sludgy mess. He remembers that there were protests for weeks after the decision and it seemed like the Boston Globe didn't print anything else for months. 

There was a lot of controversy around the decision because the idea that there was 'no land around the Potomac' was bogus. There was land, it just belonged to government officials and wealthy lobbyists in Washington and the idea of tearing down their nice homes for a water treatment plant when the memorial was 'just wasted space' (according to one leaked comment), was laughable to those in power.

Despite the government’s best efforts to keep the construction low-key, its progress appeared in every major newspaper around the country. When it was completed it was miraculously lauded as the greatest improvement to grace the tidal basin. That’s the media for you.

It’s wild that after all this time, he's actually seeing it like this. 

His attention is drawn back to the scene unfolding inside the glass chamber, when the man whose voice has been bouncing around the room, shoots the woman to the left of him. It’s a threat to the older gentleman in vault suit at the main console of the chamber. There's surprised shock from the people gathered outside the lab, a group of four. Further ahead, in a decontamination chamber, the kid Nick saw from before is pounding on the glass of the chamber's door.

“Open it, Li!” he yells as Nick moves to stand beside him. 

It’s Deacon. He should have guessed it before (what with the red hair and the sneaking around), but it’s the voice that does it. It's not quite as raspy as Nick remembers it, but he's young here and without the throat injury. 

Oddly, Nick can feel the sensation of panic rising within him, even though he has no tie to the situation. Nick can feel his heart starting to race and fear beginning to clench his guts. He glances at the kid; he looks like Nick feels. Then Nick gets it: he’s feeling Deacon’s pain as if it were his own.

There’s a woman standing in front of the console on the outside of the glass. She bangs on the surface of the thing. “I can't,” she says. “He's overridden the locks from in there.” This must be Li. “Stupid sonuvabitch,” she mutters. “After all this time, he's going to kill himself like this?”

Deacon bangs on the glass again, a frustrated and pained howl escaping his throat. 

The older man is turned to the console inside, his vault suit bearing the number 101. Nick thinks that number is familiar, but doesn’t know why. The man who was speaking is holding a plasma pistol at his back. Suddenly, the green fog of radiation pours into the room. The people inside the chamber start gasping and choking as the mist covers them. There are two in power armour (that same black stuff as before) and one goes for the console as the other goes after the man who was speaking; his plasma pistol hitting the ground as he’s pulled away from the door.

Deacon yells and bangs on the glass. He keeps shouting, “Dad! Dad!” Nick feels like his insides are being crushed by fear and he can't breathe. The man with the vault suit staggers across the floor of the lab, sagging against the glass door and then slipping down. Deacon falls to his knees with him. 

“Please dad,” he says; voice a hoarse, choked sob, “please don't go.”

All the man says as he collapses on the floor is: “Run!”

Deacon lets out a pained screech that feels like it is ripped right from the bottom of Nick's ribcage. He can't keep his ground; the grief and anger that's rushing through him are too much to bear. He sags against the bulkhead of the chamber, knees threatening to give out. He doesn't even realize he's crying until he sees the mirrored wetness of it on Deacon's face. 

_No, not Deacon,_ Nick thinks, _This kid isn't that man, not yet._ However, this is a piece of him; a piece he can't let go of if the pain is still this raw and fresh.

Li darts into the decontamination room and grabs the kid by one arm. 

“Get up,” she says; her voice harsh with tears. “Get up, --” there’s the movement of her lips like she's saying a name, but there's no sound. “Get up, now!” she snaps, when the kid won’t move from where he’s leaning against the glass; his position mimicking his dad’s on the other side. “We can't stay here; The Enclave will rush this room any minute.”

Enclave?

Nick pushes himself off the wall and looks into the chamber. He can see the plasma pistol that belonged to the speaking-man lying on the floor, like a discarded toy. He'd bet anything that plasma pistol has _Enclave_ engraved on the side and _A.A._ on the butt. 

Li manages to drag the kid off the floor, but Nick knows it's only because his anger is winning over his grief and sadness. He can feel the embers of it stirring like the beginning of some great forest fire. The kid looks into the lab chamber one last time as if to memorize the scared and pitted armour of the men so he might find them again at a later date. It's a look that makes Nick shiver. 

And it's one he's seen before. On a different face, but the blackness of it is the same.

Nick follows the group down the ramp. They file quickly out the door, but when Nick does too, he finds himself outside the Megaton house again, staring at the table with the slatted-shade of the pergola playing over everything. 

Nick struggles to breathe as he tries to push away the grief, sadness, and anger crushing his chest. It's not the first time he's felt this group of emotions -he’s lost friends and colleagues as a police detective, and others as a synth, but to feel it via someone else? To _literally_ feel their pain, has compounded it in a way that he can't even begin to describe. It's intimate and awful and...Nick scrubs the tears from his face, what kind of hell has this kid been through?

Suddenly, a pair of battered steel-toed boots enter his vision -he can actually see the steel winking at him from a hole in one boot. Nick glances up and sees a faded, blue jumpsuit with patched knees, frayed hems, burn marks, and more patches. Finally, he sees the brightly smiling face of a woman somewhere in her mid-thirties with a shock of red hair tied haphazardly tied back from her face. She sticks a hand out.

“Hi! Want a hand up?” she asks, voice bright and cheery. “Oh, you look so sad. You saw James die, didn't you? Poor dear. That one always gets me goin'. Waterworks _all over_ the place.”

Nick stares at her, unsure of what to make of her light tone. Is she mocking him, or being serious?

“Come on, don't sit there on the ground all day. You'll wreck that nice suit of yours; wouldn't you rather sit on a chair?”

“Uh, I suppose...” Nick replies hesitantly and takes her hand; her grip is firm and her hand is about as rough as sandpaper. She helps him to his feet, then leads him over to the large table. She takes the chair at the head of the table and gestures for him to take another.

“I'm Moira Brown,” she says. “And you are?”

His eyebrow raise. This is Moira Brown? Or at the very least, a memory of her. She must have meant something to the kid if her representation his floating around in his head. 

“Nick Valentine.”

“Oh! How nice to meet you! Though, you are looking a little less robotic than I was lead to believe. Why, you look practically human!”

Nick runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, not sure what to make of that myself.”

Moira waves a hand. It might seem dismissive on anyone else, but for some reason, it’s oddly comforting. Is that because she was? Or because the kid remembers her that way and it’s transferring to Nick? 

“I wouldn't worry about it. It's probably just how your mind sees yourself. Ya know, human, like you used to be. Not as a synth full of holes. By the way, we're really sorry about that nasty gash on your neck.” She suddenly looks sad. “And about Tom.”

“How do you know about that?” Nick asks, eyes narrowed.

Moira looks away. “We were there.”

Nick closes his eyes. “Of course. Who else would Tom drop everything to help and then not tell me a Goddamn thing about them.” He looks at Moira, a frown etched on his face. “What the hell were you doin’ there?!”

“Making a mistake.”

“That much was blatantly obvious,” Nick snaps, angry that Deacon didn’t trust him enough to come to him about the situation; angry that it took a Minuteman to mention an undercover agent for Nick to finally figure it out it _was_ Deacon.

“You’ll tell Ellie we’re sorry, won’t you?”

Nick is already nodding as he listens with only half an ear; he’s berating himself for not stopping Tom. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up. “We?” he asks; she keeps saying that.

“Me and ‘Deacon’.” She makes exaggerated air quotes when she says the kid’s name and then laughs. “That’s so cute, isn’t it? He thinks that if he changes his name it somehow changes who he is. He’s going to be _so_ upset when he realizes that isn’t true.”

Nick looks at her in some surprise. He hadn’t considered that some part of the kid didn’t agree with his whole ‘running away from everything’ bit.

“And who is he?”

“Well, Nick -can I call you Nick?-” he nods “-Good. Well, Nick, I would love you tell you all about it, except he won’t let me.” She points up at the sky and then shrugs. 

“Why?”

Moira leans across the table, closing the distance between them. A breeze ruffles her hair and he can smell the faint odor of Wonder Glue and paint thinner. 

“I have no idea,” she says. “Well, actually I do, since technically we are the same person, but I’ll be honest with you, his reasoning makes no sense to me. Poor dear; he’s a half a bubble off plum, ya know.” Moira makes a twirling motion at the side of her head and then laughs brightly.

Nick can’t help but chuckle, especially seeing as how the kid said the same thing about her. Uh…well, not really _her_. 

“Now, you come with me and I’ll show you the good things about James.” Moira stands and pulls Nick up and along to the house’s door. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Uh…now, wait. I don’t think this is a good idea,” Nick says. He can’t imagine having to live through that memory again. 

“Don’t worry. There’s good memories too. You didn’t think we just had bad ones, did ya?” Moira shoves open the door and drags Nick back inside.

Suddenly, they’re standing in the Jefferson Memorial rotunda again. Only this time, there is no voice speaking over the intercom and no group of people hovering outside the glass. Moira leads Nick back up the ramp and they head in through the decontamination chamber right into the lab. 

Just off to the left side of the room, is the older man from before. This must be James. He’s standing in front of a bank of monitors, holding a clipboard and making notes on a scrap of paper as he checks the screens. Nick looks around for the kid but doesn’t see a flash of red hair anywhere but on Moira.

Then, the door below them bangs open and the kid dashes up the ramp. 

“This is silly, dad,” the kid says as he enters the lab and breezes by Nick and Moira. “You should’ve just given me the fuses when I was here last. I kept that damn reactor in the vault runnin’, pretty sure I can could’ve handled shovin’ a few fuses into a breaker box at the same time I got the emergency generator runnin’. You do realize that there are like a million stairs between here and there, right?”

James watches the kid’s good-natured rant with a small smile. Nick moves closer and looks between the two of them. The kid is the spitting image of his father. They have the same smile, and eyes, and nose. The kid has a stronger jawline, though, and more prominent cheekbones, but the family resemblance is uncanny.

“It’s actually 28 stairs,” James replies. “I didn’t want you to break the fuses while you wandered around in the dark. Besides, I couldn’t wait to hear you exaggerate the number of stairs.”

“How did you know it was gonna be the stairs? I coulda exaggerated anythin’. Like the maze-like quality of those hallways downstairs. I swear I tripped over the same super mutant corpse like five times before I found the right corridor to take me back upstairs last week. Now, I don’t have even a corpse to guide me.”

James laughs. “Your mother used to have tape up all over the place to direct her back to the main stairs. She was forever getting lost down there.”

“Good to know the ‘crap at directions’ gene was passed along,” the kid says with a smirk and leans against the bank of monitors. Careful to keep the hard edges of his armour away from the glass faces. “So where are these fuses? That main generator won’t start itself.”

James sets down his clipboard. “Before I hand them over, I wanted to talk with you about something.”

The kid’s eyes get big. “What did Li tell you? I swear that bar brawl in The Muddy Rudder was the other guy’s fault.”

There’s a momentary look of horror that crosses James’ face before the kid bursts into lively laughter.

“Joke, dad,” he says with a grin. “Though, kinda offended that you believed I would get into a bar brawl.”

“Well, as long as you won,” James replies with a smirk.

That starts the kid laughing again. 

“I’ll admit, I’m worried about the Wastes’ changing you, but I realize that I shouldn’t be. I heard what you did for Megaton. They’ve been waiting 200-years for someone to do that.”

“Don’t go marking me as purely altruistic. I got a house out of it, so it was a pretty good deal.”

“They gave you a house?” James asks with surprised smile.

“Yeah. Though, I think it’s because I did double duty with the bomb and I’m also keeping Moira in line. If I’m her guinea pig then, she isn’t trying to experiment on the town and Simms seems to think that in of itself is worth keepin’ me around.”

“Aw! Isn’t that nice?” Moira says to Nick. “I knew he liked me best.”

Nick gives her a weird look. He’s not sure what about that statement can be interpreted as affection. 

Suddenly, James pulls the kid into a hug. It’s the crushing type of hug, the one that says ‘don’t go’ or ‘I love you more than anything’. The kid seems surprised for a second, but then he wraps his arms around James. 

“I’m so proud of you, --” he says. (There’s that annoying silence again. Nick can watch these memories, these intimate moments, but he can’t hear the kid’s name? Where’s the logic in that?) “and I love you. You’re the best thing I ever did.”

The kid starts blushing and Nick can feel the pride, gratitude, and love welling up within him. It’s almost overwhelming but much better than the grief and despair that Nick experienced the last time he was in this place. 

“Hey, I learned from the best,” the kid mumbles into his father’s shoulder. After a moment longer, he pulls back. “Now where are those fuses? I need to clear outta here before I start cryin’. Can you imagine Li seein’ me all weepy?”

James chuckles and releases the kid. 

“See?” Moira says, coming to stand by Nick. “We have good ones too. Wanna see another?”

Nick shrugs and nods. Moira grabs his arm and starts pulling him back to the decontamination chamber. She draws her hand in front of herself, like the way one might draw back a curtain, and the room suddenly shifts. Changing into another place in between eye blinks. 

Now they’re in a place with harsh, bright lighting, that seems to washes the edges of the room out. Nick’s footsteps click on the metal flooring, and around them are stacks and stacks of faded and battered metal crates. On some of them, in faint lettering ‘Vault-Tec’, can be made out. Through the mass of crates, Nick finds a man and a young boy standing next to one another.

The man is leaning over the boy, teaching him to line up a shot on an old BB rifle. At first, Nick doesn't recognize the man, with his dark hair and lab coat, but when he steps back and Nick gets a clear view of bright red hair and 101 on the kid's jumpsuit, he realizes they've gone pretty far back in time because he’s looking at Deacon and his father.

This particular memory is faded, and fuzzy around the edges. There's no sound either, but this time Nick doesn't think it's a willful omission. It's probably silent because Deacon can't remember what exactly was said, but he does remember the room, the colours, the sensations of eagerness and joy that comes with being so young and getting to learn something special and secret. 

Wait, secret?

Nick looks around the room again; it’s clearly a storage area of some kind, but there's a battered set of targets ahead that look like they've seen something stronger than BB pellets at one time. Nick walks back toward the area that he and Moira came in from, and realizes that he can't see the makeshift firing range from this part of the room. He assumes that there is a door beyond the washed out area and the images that nothing but the crates can be seen from it. 

He wonders why this area is a secret. 

Nick trails back down to the firing ranging and watches the progression of the two in silence. The careful instruction of James and the eager way Deacon replicates it. Then, he looks at Moira. She’s perched atop a couple crates, legs swinging lazily and making a soft _thunk_ noise as the rubber soles of her boots hit the crates. In the harsh lighting of the room, it looks like she has a halo.

“He grew up in a vault,” Nick says, stating what is clearly obvious, but he still wants the confirmation. “You grew up in a vault,” he corrects a moment later -she said they were the same person. Moira nods. “and your dad taught you to shoot. Did you expect to leave? I thought you vault types liked your isolation.”

She gives him a sad smile and looks at James and the young kid. Moira opens her mouth to speak when another voice interrupts her.

“He always expected to leave, didn't he _Moira_? To leave you behind in the safety and isolation of the vault. To keep you protected from the Wastes. Or perhaps, it was to protect the Wastes from you.” 

Nick watches as a tall man in a slick-looking pre-war suit joins them at the end of the crate corridor. His has heavy framed glasses that catch the harsh lighting of the place, leaving his eyes mostly hidden. His face is clean shaven and he has light colored hair that is turning white around the edges of his face. Like Moira, he’s sharp and clear where the memory is not. 

“James like do that, didn't he? Pretend that he knew what was best for those around him without considering the consequences. Jonas would still be alive if not for his hubris.”

Moira face hardens into a scowl. It's the first negative emotion he's seen from her. “Jonas is dead because of Almodovar's over-reaction and Mack wanting to prove just how big and bad he was with that fuckin’ 10mm pistol.”

Moira doesn't sound anything like she did before. Her voice has lost all of its previous cheerfulness and has gotten dark. 

The man smirks slightly, but there's nothing happy about it. “That's not what Deacon thinks.”

“Well, _Deacon-_ ” she specifically stresses the name, the same way the man did earlier to hers “-is an idiot. We keep having this same conversation, but he won't listen to me. He likes the pain and misery of it all. In fact, one might call them bosom buddies. After all, misery does love its company.” 

“Doesn't it? Well, I wouldn't worry about that too much longer. You and Deacon won't be around soon enough.”

Moira hops off the crates and steps forward into the man's space. For some reason, she manages to be the same height as the man, despite not coming much higher than Nick's chin before.

“Here's a novel idea, Braun: why don't you join your corpse and _drop dead,_ ” she snarls. 

“Oh, I will. Just as soon as you do.” Braun steps closer to Moira, maybe meaning to drive her back, but she stands her ground. “No Eden to save you this time, my dear. No plug to pull and end this simulation.”

“I don't need Eden-”

“No? Then why have you kept him all these years?” Braun's smirk gets wider as Moira’s scowl gets darker. “How does it feel to spend the rest of your very short life knowing you failed to save yourself, just as you failed to save all the people in your life who mattered most. Frankly, I feel I'm doing the Commonwealth a favour. As if these people need The Lone Wanderer running amuck with all the other problems they’re facing.” 

_The Lone Wanderer,_ Nick thinks, _that's familiar too. Just like the number: 101. Why?_ Nick racks his brain. It feels like he doesn't have access to all his processing power in this place. 

“They need me and I don't care what he thinks. We will get out of this.” As she says this, Nick steps up beside her. Whoever or whatever this Braun character is, this is the thing Amari was talking about earlier. This is what's keeping the kid trapped. 

Braun looks between the two of them in a lazy, imperious way. It angers Nick. 

“‘We’, is it? Do you suppose Mr. Valentine will be so eager to help you when he sees all the horrible things you've done, my dear?”

“You may get Deacon with that bullshit, but I'm not ashamed of the things I've done.”

“Indeed. Well, let's see if Mr. Valentine agrees.” Braun turns and heads back the way he came. “Not you, 'Moira',” he says over his shoulder, “You stay here in this place with James. Or go back to Megaton where you belong, but do not interrupt.”

Moira snarls at Braun's back and looks like she wants to rip him to shreds, but she doesn't move. Perhaps she can't. After a second, she grabs Nick's arm. He can feel a tug forcing him to follow in Braun's wake, but Moira's grasp holds him in this place. 

“Nick,” she says, face serious. “Whatever he shows you will be out of context. And remember, if you want to see something else, just ask.”

“Somehow, I doubt he's going to oblige me, kid.”

Moira's face breaks into a smile at the nickname. 

“Not him, silly,” she says, voice returning to normal. “ _Deacon._ It’s his mind after all. Well, _ours._ Be careful, Nick.” 

Moira releases his arm, and then she's gone. A moment later, the room disappears too. 

Nick stumbles slightly as the sloped, makeshift staircase of Megaton is suddenly underfoot, but it is not the Megaton Nick first arrived in. No. This place is a war zone. Literally. The scent of gunpowder and ozone from laser weapons is heavy in the air as the sun beats down on the town. Gunfire sounds in pops and dashes and laser fire hisses answers in kind.

Nick tries to get his bearing in the smoke and dust as he reminds himself that this is memory and he can't get shot, _so stop ducking you idiot._

He’s near the houses at the gate and a bunch of civilians carrying weapons are crouched behind their walls, staring down into the center of town. Most of them have some sort of chest armour over their everyday clothes, and they seem to be relatively inexperienced judging by the way they’re in discordance with each other when it comes to firing and reloading their pistols and rifles. 

Nick follows their line of sight and sees a group of six people in power armour at the bottom of the crater. They’re taking cover behind the lower catwalk ramps and building struts to the right of the stairs, keeping their distance from the bomb. 

These people are more organized than the civilians at the top of the hill, but as Nick picks his way down, he notes another small group of civilians that seem just as organized as the power armour group. He spots a flash of red hair among them as a frag is thrown at the power armours and its explosion kicks up quite a bit of dust. He's not sure if it has actually hit any of the power armour. As the dust settles, Nick is unable to locate that flash of red.

Suddenly, a power armour suit seizes up. Then another, and another. The last three seem to figure out what is wrong and huddle together, back to back, trying to protect their fusion cores. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick spots a warble of light darting around the bomb and back to the other side of the crater. He smirks; clever tactic. Nick heads over to the civilian group; they’re huddled behind a sandbag wall that has been set up in front of the house that Nick noted earlier was the only one directly on the ground. He glances up at the roof, but there’s no ‘DEATHCLAW’ sign on it.

As he approaches, three fusion cores are dumped on the ground and the kid reappears pressed against the side wall of the house. 

“Well that's three of them,” says a man with a battered cowboy hat and a sheriff’s star, “but now that they're huddled up like that, how do you expect to get the rest of them?”

“Those eye-holes look like weak spots. We shoot them and the fuckers die,” says another man, with a buzzed haircut and cigarette dangling from his mouth, as he slams another cartridge into his assault rifle. 

“As good as a suggestion as that is, Jericho-” Nick leans around the end of the building and finds Moira crouching in the dirt fiddling with the fusion cores “-that's actually a re-enforced area. It would kinda be like trying to kill the Silver Shroud with his own gun.”

“What? Christ, Moira, do you even speaking the same fuckin' language as the rest of us?”

There a snort from the other person in the group: a younger man with a bandanna around his head and an eyepatch. “Don't you read comics, Jericho? Oh wait, you can't read, my bad.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Billy or these Outcast fucks ain't gonna be the only ones dyin' here today.”

The kid joins Moira in fiddling with the fusion cores and Nick finds it odd that he hasn't said anything. This sounds like the kind of conversation he would have several smart-ass quips for, even during a firefight. _Especially_ during a firefight.

The man in the cowboy hats intercedes because it looks like Billy is about to start a real argument. “Shoot at the power armour, Jericho and no one else, or we’re gonna have a problem. And what Moira was trying to say was: you can't kill the Shroud with his own gun. Don't work. Just like tryin' to shoot eye area of the helmets won’t work.”

“That's all she had to fuckin' say. What the hell is with the fuckin' Shroud referee?”

“Reference, Jericho. Reference,” the kid finally speaks up. His voice sounds odd, though. Wooden. Not like himself. 

“Yeah. Right. I gotta remember that. Hey, hey, hey! Looks like those Outcast fucks are makin' a move.”

The group glances over at the remaining power armours as they start moving from the cover the ramp. There’s a sudden _crack_ of a large calibre rifle and it echoes loudly in the area. One of the power armours is flung back with a shot to the shoulder joint. The armour corrects for balance so it doesn’t fall, but the joint is now leaking hydraulic fluid. The three of them abandon whatever plan they had, and take cover under the ramp again.

“Damn! Stockholm sure knows how to use that rifle. That'll keep 'em back,” Billy says with a grin. 

“You almost done back there?” Cowboy Hat asks Moira and Deacon as he fires a few rounds into the ramp to keep the power armours down. 

“Almost,” the kid replies. “Jericho, give me one of your frags.”

Jericho tosses one behind his shoulder and the kid snatches it out of the air. 

“What're you doing with that?” Cowboy Hat asks.

“Oh, just making a teeny, tiny fusion bomb,” Moira replies as the kid starts tapping the two fusion cores, that Moira attached together with some wire, to the frag grenade. It’s very reminiscent of the makeshift bomb that Deacon made to throw at The Swan.

“What?!” Cowboy Hat exclaims at the same time,

Jericho swears: “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

And Billy asks incredulously: “Are you trying to kill us all?!” 

“Put that damn thing away, Moira,” Cowboy Hat continues after the initial surprise. “I will not have you throwin’ a Goddamn bomb in town. Now with _that_ bomb sittin’ a few scant feet away.”

The kid ignores the conversation and continues to fashion the fusion bomb. Nick is certain, that regardless of the decision made here by these people, he’s going to throw the thing.

“Don’t worry about it, Lucas,” Moira says, “The casing on the bomb will protect it. They were meant to explode from the inside out, not the outside in. Besides, it fell from the sky and didn’t explode. This little thing won’t even make a dent in it.”

“You’ll destroy half the town! I will not let you use that thing,” Cowboy Hat Lucas replies with a growl.

“Not half the town.” Moira starts counting off on her fingers. “More like Doc Church’s clinic, a few pipes, the ramp up to the upper level-”

“That’s too damn much.”

The kid pulls the pin on the frag grenade. “Not your decision to make, Sheriff,” he says and throws the whole package at the power armour group, huddled and frozen alike. 

There’s a shout from Lucas as the bomb arcs through the air. The power armour group starts to move away from the incoming explosive, moving backward through the various building struts, in and effort to avoid both it and the keen eye of Stockholm. Nick has never had occasion to see a fusion core explode, let alone two, but if it was anything like the explosion of the nuclear core of that car in The Common, it’s not going to be pretty.

The group the kid is a part of takes cover behind the house, Lucas swearing at him the whole way. Jericho and the kid peer around the edge of the house to see the explosion. Nick counts off a few seconds in his head, then the bomb package goes off. 

The initial frag explosion is minor and there’s a split second between it and the explosion of the fusion cores. Which, like Moira said, take out the building above the power armour group (Doc Church’s Clinic, Nick assumes), several pipes that are laying on the ground and hanging from the ramps -they start spraying water all over the place- the ramps themselves, and much of cat-walks and several of the buildings above. 

Nick watches as the explosion’s shock wave takes out a few more ramps that were barely hanging on after the initial explosion, and rolls a wave of water out toward the house the kid and company are hiding behind. The large, deactivated bomb in the center of town rocks back and forth with the force of it, and there’s the sound of bits of metal and rock hitting its housing, but judging from the simple fact that Deacon lived long enough to make it to the Commonwealth, Nick’s going to assume that Cowboy Hat Lucas’ concerns over it exploding are unfounded.

The clinic collapses onto the ground without any support struts and the building above it comes down as well, burying the three frozen power armour suits. The other three manage to slip further back, but the moment the shock wave dissipates, the kid leads his group around the house and through the building struts on the north side of the bomb so that they end up cutting off the power armour group.

They now have no cover left to run to, their armour is battered and destroyed, three of them are likely dead or soon will be under the rubble of the buildings, and now these last three, who were previously only out-manned, are now also out-gunned and out-armoured. 

The kid faces the three of them, his group flanking him and their weapons trained on the power armours. Didn’t Jericho call them outcasts? Outcasts of what? A raider group maybe? No. Raider’s don’t usually use laser weapons; they don’t have the tech or the means to maintain them. Maybe the Capital Wasteland has a group like the Gunners. 

“Don’t bother torchin' your armour,” the kid says, his voice full of barely controlled rage. It’s the only emotion Nick has seen out of him so far. “By the looks of it, it's already worthless. Helmets off ladies and gentlemen, and we’ll go from there.”

There’s hesitation from the power armour group and Jericho sprays the ground in front of them with bullets in warning. 

“You fuckin’ heard him, right?” Jericho asks as the dust settles. “Move, or we kill you now.”

There’s a moment more of reluctance, then the power armour that seems to be in charge of the these last few, unlatches the helmet from the chest piece with a slight hiss as it depressurizes. The other two follow suit. Two men and a woman stare at the kid with hardened faces full of pain and anger.

“Since you’re going to kill us anyways, we might as well look one another in the eye while you do it,” the leader says, his voice rough.

The kid’s knuckles get white on his plasma pistol (this must have happened after the kid’s father died), and Nick can suddenly feel the rage and hate and grief surging through Deacon. Nick struggles to breathe through the intensity of it. The kid doesn’t seem to do emotions in half or quarters. He goes full bore at them all and Nick’s not sure he can’t handle any more of this; he doesn’t know how the kid handles them.

“Don’t try and claim the moral high ground here, you sonuvabitch,” the kid snarls. “You were dead the moment you left my vault. It’ll just take me some time to catch up to you all.”

“You should’ve just given us the data. None of this would’ve happened if you had.”

The kid snaps. Nick can feel all the rage that he had been managing to contain behind a barrier break through and spill out over everything. He shoots the power armour leader, then the other two in quick succession, the plasma of his pistol leaving an ugly mess where their faces had been. Their deaths don’t seem to be the balm for his grief that the kid’s looking for because he still feels like he wants to destroy everything within his sight.

There’s a long moment where no one speaks. Nick glances away from the kid because he can’t stand to see that wild look on his face and feel the current maelstrom that his emotions, and notes that the civilians that were on top of the crater’s ridge, making their way over to them. Sheriff Lucas notes this too and starts organizing a group to dig through the rubble of the clinic to find the other three power armour suits. 

“Leave them,” the kid snaps at Lucas. “You can dig out their corpses tomorrow.”

“They could still be alive; we should-”

“Without their fusion cores, they’ll suffocate. Leave them.”

Sheriff Lucas looks at the kid in some surprise, then to Moira and Billy. 

“Piss off, Simms,” Jericho says when it looks like some sort of intervention might be at hand, “The kid needs to his vengeance. Don’t fuckin’ spoil it for him.”

“A bullet would be more merciful,” Billy chimes in.

The kid holsters his plasma pistol in an effort to regain some control. “They don’t deserve it,” he says.

Nick tries to distance himself from the onslaught of the kid’s emotions. It’s making him want to see the rest of these outcasts suffer for whatever it was that they did to garner this reaction from him. That’s never a good path to travel down. He knows, he was on it once himself. Still is, he supposes. 

The kid heads out, leaving the rest of the group behind. As he rounds the far building, the people around Nick start to fade and disappear. Until it’s only him, the town, the corpses, and one man in a slick pre-war suit. 

Braun.

He’s peering at the remains of the people in the power armour, looking at them the way one might look at an interesting plant or animal. 

“He lured them to this town,” Braun says, “Ambushed them, killed them. Put this whole place at risk just to kill a few Brotherhood Outcasts.”

“Why?” Nick asks, not sure he’ll get a straight answer from Braun. Not sure he wants one.

“Because underneath all the polish, charm, and wit, Deacon is nothing more than a thug with a list of grievances and supposed wrongs.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Braun moves away from the bodies, a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth. “That’s because you don’t know him, Mr. Valentine.” He gestures to the destruction around them. “Is such carnage justified? He leveled part of the town, killed three unarmed people, and left the other three to suffocate in their power armour buried under this collapsed building.”

Nick crosses his arms. “He must have had a reason,” he this says more to himself than Braun. He can’t imagine that the kid would so cruelly kill these people without a justifiable cause. However, Nick does have to admit that the kid has a very short temper when it comes to certain things.

Braun doesn’t continue to argue the point; his smirk simply gets wider. Then: “Let’s visit the rest of the saga, hmm?”

Suddenly, the town fades and blurs, before settling on another memory. Very similar to the last one, but set elsewhere in the Wastes and involving only the kid and the older man, Jericho. Braun made sure they stayed long enough to witness the kid killing his way through several power armour suits, before the memory shifts again, showing another, much like the last. It continues in this manner six more times, and every one of them leave Nick reeling. 

He’s sick with the kid’s raw anger and grief, with his own horror at having to watch the kid ambush group after group of outcast power armours and kill them while Jericho cheers and hoots beside him. 

Before, Jericho said it was vengeance, but this was more than that. It is a vendetta -no, it’s _madness._ All this kid did for this period of time was eat, sleep, and kill. This isn’t the young man he knows; this isn’t even the person he’d gotten a glimpse of that day in February last year.

Then, as if a switch were flicked, the kid stops.

They are out in the middle of the Wasteland, a place that is just as dreary and green-tinted as the one before, and as the last power armoured outcast lay on the ground -the knee joints of his armour leaking hydraulic fluid all over the dirt and his rifle several feet away- the kid rips off his helmet and just…stops. Nick can feel his anger dissipate and an overwhelming sense of shame and self-loathing take its place. Nick has no idea what brought about this change, or how this man is different from all the rest. 

The kid lets the helmet slip from his grasp and it hits the ground with a heavy _thunk._

“I’m done,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jericho replies around a cigarette (Nick has yet to see him without one and he hates the idea that this man is the reason Deacon likes the smell of cigarette smoke), “Kill this prick and we’ll call it a fuckin’ day.”

“No. I’m done killing Outcasts. I’m done with this, with _all_ of this.” The kid shudders and closes his eyes. “I’m just like them,” he mutters, “Just like the Talon Company, and the raiders, and the slavers, and The Enclave, c _and The Brotherhood_ …why am I no better than them?” The kid opens his eyes again and looks down on the man. “What’s your name?”

“What the fuck are you doin’?” Jericho asks impatiently. “Shoot ‘im already.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” the kid snaps. “I’m done killing; I’ve had my fill of flesh. Forget a pound. I’ve taken a ton.” He turns back to the man on the ground. “Name and rank, soldier,” he demands with all the gravitas of a military general.

“Paladin Brandis,” the man replies, probably more rote at the tone than anything.

This man is Brotherhood of Steel. He gets it now. That’s why that one place in Megaton had that BROTHERHOOD sign over it. Nick should have put it together before (especially considering the kid is from the Capital, and the Brotherhood is big there), but he’ll blame his lack of insight on the suits' rust obscuring the winged sword symbol and the kid's overwhelming emotions.

“Well Brandis, today’s your lucky day because you get to tell Elder Lyons that you had a brush with death in the form of a very, very angry Lone Wanderer and lived to tell the tale.”

Behind the kid, Jericho swears; the kid ignores him.

“My colleague and I are going to leave you here. I suggest that you get out of that armour and collect what things you can from your dead compatriots.” The kid holsters his plasma pistol and crouches in front of Paladin Brandis. “If I ever catch wind of The Brotherhood or The Outcasts coming after people or settlements because of me, I will drop a nuke on The Citadel,” his voice is steady and deadly serious; the Paladin’s face is pinched in pain, but he seems to understand the gravity of the kid’s warning. “You make sure Sarah understands that.”

The Paladin nods. 

“Good.” The kid stands and breezes by Jericho as he heads away from the Paladin and the corpses of his company.

“That’s gonna bite you in the ass,” Jericho says as he catches up to the kid’s long-legged strides.

“Probably. Everything eventually does.”

Jericho grumbles at the kid’s flippant response and the pair fade out. 

Braun appears next to Nick. 

“Why are you doin’ this?” Nick asks. 

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Showin’ me these memories, keepin’ the kid trapped here; take your pick.”

“These memories aren’t for you; they’re for him.” Braun circles Nick. “However, these do lead to something for you, in case you were beginning to feel left out, Mr. Valentine,” he says with a cruel grin, ignoring the second part of Nick’s question. 

Nick turns to face Braun as he circles behind and finds himself facing a makeshift camp in the ruins of an old house instead. 

The kid and Jericho are sitting in front of a small fire burning in the remains of an old trash can. The kid is restless, impatiently cleaning his pistol, then half way through switching to stoking the fire, then picking up a half-eaten can of Pork ‘n Beans for a few bites before going back to his plasma pistol. 

It doesn’t take long for Jericho to lose his patience. Nick images that the man never had very much to begin with. He wonders why the kid is traveling with him; Jericho doesn’t strike him as the kid’s type of associate.

“Would you cut that shit out?” Jericho snaps.

“Fuck you.”

Nick’s eyebrows raise. It’s not often the kid uses that kind of language.

“Oh, cute. Now you use grown up words. You shoulda used those words when talkin’ with that Outcast prick, right before you turned his head into goo.”

“Your complaint is noted and ignored.”

Nick huffs a breath of laughter at that.

Jericho snorts in annoyance and they fall back into silence. The kid continues working on his plasma pistol, but Nick can tell he’s not that interested in it. The kid wants something to occupy his hands, but nothing in the immediate vicinity is what he’s looking for, not that Nick knows what he _is_ looking for. Chances are the kid doesn’t know either. He tosses his pistol aside and pulls out his knife. 

“You know what your fuckin’ problem is?” Jericho asks after the kid fiddles with the knife for a bit before throwing it at the wall. It sticks perfectly and Nick adds that talent to the list of things he didn’t know about the kid. 

“That I still throw my knife slightly to the left?” The kid’s voice drips with sarcasm.

“That too, you snot-nosed brat.” Jericho pulls a knife from his boot and throws it at the wall next to the kid’s, it lands straighter and firmer than the other one. “Your problem is, you haven’t been laid in ages. It’s makin’ you all fuckin’ tense and jumpy, and frankly, it’s starting to piss me off.”

The kid laughs, incredulous. “Oh yes, because my lack of sex life somehow managed to be the sole reason behind my lack of sunny disposition. It wouldn’t have _anything_ to with the fact that I recently lost my entire vault, went on a vengeance killin’ spree, and then realized that after killin’ more than twenty of the bastards, that death isn’t doin’ anythin’ to ease my grief and guilt over the whole thing -in fact, it’s addin’ to it, but thank you for that insight into my psyche.”

“We should fuck.”

Both Nick and the kid stare at Jericho in shock.

“Wh-what?”

Jericho rolls his eyes. “You think I don’t have fuckin’ eyes, kid?-” Nick bristles at the use of _his_ nickname for Deacon “-Two years you’ve lived in Megaton and ogled every fine piece of ass that has walked into that town. Men and women both.”

Jericho’s words rankle the kid and Nick feels a sense of relief. 

“I can assure you that your ass wasn’t on that list.”

“Yeah? Well, yours is on mine.”

“And that’s where it’ll stay because unless we’re climbing a cliff face or a ladder, that’s as close as you’re gonna get.”

Jericho shrugs. “Don’t know what you’re missin’.”

The kid raises an eyebrow and the two go back to their silence. 

Behind him, Nick hears a low chuckle and turns.

“Did you think that was the end of it?” Braun asks with a laugh. “We could have just skipped to the next part, but I like a bit of backstory. Helps you feel fully _engaged_.”

Braun points behind Nick. He turns back around and finds himself in a metal house full of eclectic furniture. 

There are ancient comic book and science posters, and oddly enough, a John Wilks-Booth Wanted poster, on the walls. Knickknacks clutter the shelves in between stack and stacks of books, and somehow there are more robot parts littering the shelves and stacked in boxes than a RobCo factory floor. Nick turn in a circle to take it all in and finds a Vault-Tec stand full of little Vault Boy dolls; they’re scratched and beaten all to hell, but charming in their own way.

This has got to be the kid’s house, he can’t imagine anyone else has this great a love of books and robots. 

A moment later, his suspicions are proven correct in the worst possible way. 

The front door bursts open and the kid and Jericho tumble through, kissing in a frantic and frenzied manner as they struggle to get out of various articles of clothing. Nick clenches his fists and tries to remind himself in face of his growing jealousy that this is only a memory, and it happened long before he ever knew Deacon. 

It not helping a whole lot.

They stumble toward the stairs, clothing dropping in their wake, and Nick stands stock still in the center of the living room like an interloper or voyeur. The kid has his feet on the first couple of stairs and when Jericho pulls away.

“Where’s that stupid robot?” he asks, voice a low growl.

“At Moira’s,” the kid answers, breathless. It both arouses and angers Nick. “I should probably just give her the damn thing; it spends more time with her than me.”

“Then who would clean up our mess?” Jericho asks with a grin.

The kid smirks. “And therein lies the problem.”

They return to their frantic kissing and continue up the stairs. Nick doesn’t move. He’s not even sure he could if he tried. His feet are rooted to the spot in his jealousy and anger. He knows logically that the kid was never really his to begin with, but the idea that he would fuck that guy, then turn around and run out on Nick, is making logic something difficult to obtain.

Upstairs, he can hear them progressing. He can hear the kid’s moans and whines, and Jericho’s litany of praising swears and _Jesus Christ_ is Braun going to make him listen to another man fuck Deacon? That thought gets Nick moving. Braun isn’t going to make him do anything; he isn’t going to let some fucked up figment of the kid’s imagination tell him what to do. Or make him listen to this memory while Nick fumes in a jealous rage on the floor below.

Nick strides across the living room and wrenches open the door— 

—and ends up in another house. 

This memory transition thing is _really_ getting old. 

He looks around at the house; it’s nothing like the one before. 

There’s wood burning stove, just to the right of a set stairs, that’s pumping out pleasant heat. Further in, there’s a battered collection of couches that are positioned around one chair that’s been raised up on a stack of pallets like some sort of throne. The windows of the house are boarded, so Nick has no idea what time of day it is, but there’s a crisp clarity to this memory that wasn’t present with the others. Nick figures it’s pretty recent, so it must be the Commonwealth.

There’s a noise on the floor above and Nick glances toward the stairs. He finds Braun sitting on the upper steps watching him. 

That’s also getting old. 

Braun looks up at the railing above him. “It’s just getting to the good part,” he says and stands. He throws Nick a smirk before he climbs the stairs and disappears onto the second floor. 

_The hell it is,_ Nick thinks and turns around to try the door. It’s locked. He pulls on the door knob fruitlessly and he swears under his breath because whatever is happening upstairs is something Nick knows he doesn’t want to see and now he has no means of escape. It’s either go upstairs and maybe get out of this place or stand here and try and burn a hole through a door, that doesn’t really exist, with his eyes.

Nick sighs and steels himself for whatever the second floor holds, then he marches up the stairs, determined to get it over with. As his shoes hit the landing, Nick wishes he had just stayed downstairs because happening on a blowjob in progress is not high on his bucket list. Nick leans on the banister, suddenly hit with a wave of the kid’s arousal and the renewal of his own jealousy, and he’s bowled over by the clash of the two. 

He shouldn’t watch because that’s what Braun wants. He should turn around and walk back down those stairs and ignore the way the kid is fighting back a moan or the taut lines of his torso. Nick closes his eyes. He can’t watch this and stay calm _-sane._

“It appears, Mr. Valentine,” Braun says from somewhere next to him. Nick refuses to open his eyes and look at the man, “that Deacon will fuck anyone in the Wastes, but you.”

Nick scowls and tries to ignore Braun. Ignore the fact that he was thinking something along the same lines not too long ago. After all the trouble that it took for Nick to get a simple kiss, it can’t be true, and yet…

“One can hardly blame the boy, though. After all, you don’t have the right… _equipment_ to get the job done.”

“Fuck you,” Nick snarls, eyes snapping open. 

Braun chuckles. “And how could you possibly manage that?”

Nick clenches his fists and tries not to strike out. He's certain that if he did, Braun would vanish and he would end up in a heap on the ground, adding insult to injury. No. What he needs to do is leave, or at the very least head back down to the main level. He could try the door again; bash the door in if he has to—

Wait.

Didn’t Moira say that if he wanted to see something else, he just had to ask? Worth a try.

“I don’t wanna see this anymore,” Nick says.

“That is unfortunate—”

“I’m not talkin’ to you,” Nick snaps and Braun is momentarily taken aback. “Kid, show me somethin’ else. Somethin’ that won’t make me want to strangle the next man who looks at you.”

The moment those last words leave his mouth, Nick feels like he gave too much away in the presence of Braun —though, the way he seemed to strike at the heart of Nick’s feelings and insecurities seems to suggest it’s too late for such precautions. 

Braun looks away from Nick at some unseen presence and scowls before disappearing. 

Nick blinks and suddenly finds himself home.

He stares at the cinderblock wall in front of the agency’s door in surprise and gives himself a moment to recover from the previous memory. Anger, jealousy, and arousal are still thrumming in his veins and he takes several deep, breaths in an effort to expel the emotions. Then, slowly, he rounds the corner into the agency proper, slightly apprehensive as to what he might find in this memory, and Nick comes face to face with himself and Deacon. 

It’s the night the kid left: Nick is leaning against Deacon, pressing him into the cinderblock wall, trying to prevent him from slipping though, his fingers, desperately kissing him, and being kissed back. 

Nick is both relieved and heartsick at the scene. He’s gone through this night a hundred different times on his own, and while he appreciates the sentiment, Nick doesn’t need to see it from the kid’s point of view and be crushed by the realizations it provides. 

The kid pulls back, letting his head fall against the wall. “I have to go,” he gasps. Nick remembers the sensation of the kid’s chest rapidly rising and falling against his as he tried to fill his lungs with as much air as possible. 

Nick mirrors his memory counterpart and frowns. “Alright,” the other Nick says. 

What else was he supposed to say? He’d already asked for the kid to stay and he had made it clear that he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t just step away and let Deacon’s words become reality. He wanted to hold on to that moment a little longer.

“Like, tonight. Now.”

He remembered that: the way the kid almost smiled when he said those words because Nick hadn’t moved, and how Nick wanted to kiss him again. Maybe he should have, but he was afraid that the kid would lean away and-

Deacon pulls the other Nick back with a tug and suddenly they’re kissing again. Slower this time, more languid and assured now that there seems to be the unspoken agreement that the kid isn’t going anywhere tonight. 

Nick watches in some surprise as the memory version of him slides his hand up to the column of Deacon’s neck, carefully tracing the area that the Courser bruised and crushed. While the kid wraps an arm around Nick’s neck and pulls him closer. 

This isn’t how it happened. They’ve gone from memory to…fantasy? Nick’s stomach clenches as a wave of his own arousal washes over him; the kid fantasised about them. _About him._

The other Nick drops his hand from Deacon’s neck and tries to find the edges of the kid’s shirt under his bomber jacket and vest. There’s a noise of frustration and Nick smirks slightly; that night the kid was wearing every piece of armoured clothing he had. 

“Off,” the other Nick growls, his voice low and rough. Deacon swoons slightly and Nick makes a mental note. “All of it.”

The kid jumps to comply and starts undoing the zipper on his bomber jacket, while the other Nick starts on the buckle of the kid’s tool belt. Deacon gives the other Nick a shove so he can pull his jacket off, but it get’s caught on one hand and the kid has to flail momentarily until the weight of the jacket pulls it off. Nick chuckles slightly -why did he include that?

The tool belt falls in a noisy heap at Deacon’s feet and the other Nick immediately moves to work on the large buttons of the kid’s vest, while he moves to the belt buckle on his pants. The other Nick beats Deacon to the punch and forces the kid to stop working so he can shove the vest off his shoulders.

It hits the floor with a muffled _thump_ and the other Nick doesn’t bother to spare a moment for the buttons on Deacon’s shirt, just pulls the whole thing up and over his head. Then, he presses the kid back into the cinderblock wall and Deacon lets out a small hiss at the contact with the cool stone. 

Nick marvels at the exposed skin of the kid. It’s freckled and bronzed from the summer sun and he wishes he could actually touch it. This version of Deacon looks much healthier than the one he saw in the previous memory; than the one, he saw before he climbed into the Memory Lounger. 

Nick shakes himself; he has to get out of here. The kid doesn’t have much longer and here he is watching some fantasy about himself when he could be out there making it a reality. Nick turns on his heel and heads for the door.

“Kid,” he says, “take me to you.” 

Nick opens the agency’s door and finds himself back in Megaton again, outside the house that has the large ‘DAD’ on its side. He sighs. Somehow he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Why the long face?” 

Nick’s head shoots up. 

Sitting on the large table, in the dappled shade of the pergola, is Deacon —no, he quickly corrects, it’s the kid. He doesn’t have any of the faces that Deacon has born. This young man looks like the kid Nick saw in the memories of the Capital Wasteland, but he’s wearing the vest that Charlie Fallon made Deacon, heart-shaped patch and all. 

“Didn’t you like that particular…memory?” the kid asks with a smirk. “That ending was much better, don’tcha think? I tried for that ending originally, but…” he shrugs in an attempt to encompass all that went on that night.

Nick’s not sure what to say. After all the traipsing around he did in the kid’s memories, he finds him sitting here on the table, swinging his legs, and grinning at Nick like a loon. It can’t be this easy. Nick’s wary for some trick of Braun’s and looks the kid up and down, trying to find a hole in the disguise. 

Ironically, he does find a hole. A worn through section on one of the kid’s boots were a piece of the steel toe is winking in the afternoon light.

“You’re Moira,” Nick says, realization dawning.

“Actually, _I_ was pretending to be _her._ Can’t be myself these days —Deacon’s not real fond of me, but since you finally asked me —him? Us?— to see something other than our sorted sexual and murderous past (took you long enough, by the way), I figured I could show myself in one last hoorah before everything ended.”

Nick’s heart drops. “Am I too late?”

“Not yet. Almost, though.” The kid looks out over Megaton. “I did everything I could. Fought with everything I have, but it’s not enough. The part of me that wants to die is outweighing this part of me that wants to live, and Braun is capitalizing on that.” 

“What is he?” Nick asks, choosing the safer question.

The kid looks back at Nick. “A piece of a man long dead; of a man rotting in the confines of Vault 112 forgotten and unmourned -exactly as that bastard should be.” There’s a momentary look of rage that flickers over the kid’s face, but he shakes his head and it’s gone. “He wanted to live so badly, that when Eden terminated his life support, some piece of his mind got stuck in here.” He gestures to the whole of Megaton. “Whether or not he meant for that to happen, I have no idea. To be honest, I didn’t even know he was rattling around in here until this whole fiasco.”

There’s a moment of silence while Nick processes that information and works up the courage to ask: “And why do you want to die?”

The kid gives him a sad smile. “Oh Nick, we do not have enough time to go into all the reasons why part of me believes that the Wastes are better off without The Lone Wanderer.”

There’s that Lone Wanderer thing again. Why does he know that?

“You don’t have a lot of time,” the kid says and hops off the table. “You’ll find the rest of me in Vault 112.” He walks over to the railing and points to the neon sign across town. “And when you see me —er him, don’t mention the whole ‘Lone Wanderer’ thing, okay? He’ll freak when he realizes you know.” The kid gives Nick a critical look. “You do, right?”

“…Kinda.”

The kid laughs. “You don’t! He’s all worked up over nothing. I knew it.”

“It’s this prickle in the back of my processor, I’ll get there eventually.”

“That’s what happens when you get old, your mind starts to go,” the kid says with a grin.

Nick raises an eyebrow. “Considering the state of this place, I can only imagine how _gone_ your mind will be when you’re my age.

“Oh God, let’s hope I don’t get _that_ old.”

Nick smiles and shakes his head. He missed this. He missed the kid. 

Suddenly something small and soft is pressed into his hand. Nick looks down and sees the small, red, fabric heart off the kid’s vest in a crumpled mess in his hand. He glances up the kid and a look of shock crosses his face.

There’s a hole where the patch used to be, but not like the hole that was originally in the vest. No. This hole is the same shape and size as the fabric heart in Nick’s hand, and is currently spilling a thick liquid full of colours all over the front of the kid’s vest. As they stream their way down his front, the kid becomes greyer and greyer.

Nick steps forward, fabric heart in his outstretched hand, unsure how to stop the mess, but the kid shakes his head. 

“You need that,” he says.

“You’re…dying.” Nick’s not sure how else to put it because as the colours continue to cascade down his front, the kid starts looses his substance.

The kid nods. “I always was. Braun is killing me and that part, trapped up there,—” he tilts his head toward the neon sign for VAULT 112 “—is lettin’ the sonuvabitch do it. Help me kick his ass, won’t you?”

“How?”

“Just be you, Nick.”

“Not givin’ me a whole lot to go on here.”

The kid shrugs, nearly transparent. “I couldn’t save myself, so what makes you think I have some sage advice in this moment?”

Nick huffs in annoyance. “Point taken.”

“Hey, Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Be my Valentine?”

Nick smiles, closing his fist around the fabric heart. “Always,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope that this chapter being from Nick’s POV was a welcome surprise. It is one of two that I have planned and because it could only be one chapter, it is kinda long. Also, this chapter was difficult to write because changing gears to Nick from Deacon was tougher than I thought it would be, so hopefully this sounds like Nick and not like Deacon impersonating Nick (which might be kinda fun, now that I think of it). 
> 
> Next chapter is back to Deacon, and will be that way until the very end of the fic, where the last Nick chapter makes its appearance.


	15. The Maladjusted Jester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _All causes shall give way: I am in blood_   
>  _stepp’d so far that, should I wade no more,_   
>  _returning were as tedious as go o’er:_   
>  _strange things I have in head, that will to hand;_   
>  _which must be acted ere they may be scann’d_
> 
> _-Macbeth (3.4.136)_

Deacon doesn’t often dream. 

In fact, outside those situations that cause stress-induced nightmares, Deacon doesn’t dream at all. Nor can he remember a time when he had a dream that wasn’t a nightmare. 

Even in the sheltered and cozy confines of the vault, Deacon had a tendency to dream of horrific things rather than all the mind-numbingly saccharine things Vault-Tec propaganda would have preferred. Maybe it’s because he has a wild imagination and the mindset of a planner; thus, his mind is always trying to come up with a way to handle, or deal with any number of worst-case scenarios. However, all it really does is scare the wits out of him. 

Perhaps, if he had a flair for literary writing instead of simply memorization, he might’ve channeled those nightmares into novels to cleanse his mind of their potency. 

Instead, they’re fodder for his current predicament. 

Deacon knows that Braun’s ultimate aim is to see him dead, and at this point, he’s tired of fighting it. He’s been the reason for, and the cause of, so much death in his short life, that the idea of continuing on is utterly exhausting. He wishes that Braun would just bring it all to an end right now, but believing that man would be merciful in this is a pipe dream. Braun wants a little revenge for his own death, and since he can’t get to Eden, Deacon is just going to have to suffice. 

Ahead, there’s a ‘T’ intersection in the corridor and Deacon pauses as he considers in which direction to go. Both corridors look identical and fade to black further down. He decides to go left, because ultimately, his decision doesn’t truly matter. Things appear as Braun wishes them to, and Deacon is left to wander aimlessly through vault corridors that are unfamiliar until something familiar appears in the form of a window to his life’s worst moments. 

Deacon never had this kind of dream while he actually lived in the vault -of being trapped in corridors that were perfect, smooth and utterly foreign, ensuring he never found his way back home-, but it cropped up as a product of all the horrible things he learned that Vault-Tec subjected the residences of the majority of its vaults to. In the back of his mind, Deacon always worried that the good fortune of his vault was a fluke and somewhere in the bowels of its UV lit corridors, there was an experiment waiting to prey on them. 

He hasn’t had this one for a long while, but here it is. One of his most hated nightmares (well, before everything else) and Braun is using it to keep him trapped in his own mind while he wastes away in the land of consciousness. Deacon always assumed dying of dehydration would be something horrible and thus he feared it, but in this place, all he has to fear is himself. 

Deacon’s not sure if that’s a better or a worse way to die.

There’s faint echo of a voice down the long stretch of the corridor, and Deacon stops to listen. For the last little while, he’s felt like there’s been someone else in here besides Braun. At the windows, it feels like someone else is watching; that there’s someone else Braun is goading when he forces Deacon to watch these memories again. Memories he’d rather pretend didn’t exist. 

Though oddly, there are some good memories in there, and he can’t imagine Braun throwing him a proverbial bone. No. Some part of him is going through those memories, but it isn’t showing him per say. It’s feels like that same second presence is watching those memories as well. Deacon’s so far down here in the dark that he’s not sure of the way up. Perhaps he’s taken to hallucinating, or maybe this is just the last flickering resistance against Braun and it’s coming across as foreign because the majority of him is done fighting.

Deacon knows he’s more of a danger than a help to the Wastes. Always has been. 

Is the Capital Wasteland any better off for having known him? No. Worse even, with the reconciliation of The Outcastes and The Brotherhood. The Commonwealth will be something similar if he intervenes, and at the rate he’s going, it will happen; the only guarantee he has against that is to die-

“You are so thick-headed sometimes, you know that?”

Deacon jumps and turns around. Moira is glaring at him with her arms crossed; she used to look at difficult projects with that face. It was her _‘why aren’t you working right?’_ face. 

“After everything I did for you, you’re just going throw it all way over the same martyr complex James had? As if dying will solve all your problems. It won’t ya know. Eden is still out there and you need to manage that project. You owe him that.”

Deacon opens is mouth to say something, but Moira keeps talking.

“And what about Nora McCoy? You’re just going to leave some pre-war schmuck alone to fend for themselves in the hell that is the Wastes? You do remember what it was like when you first left the vault, right? You would never have made it without help from me.”

It sounds like her, but the words aren’t something she would say. They sound more like him. Understandable, since it’s not like some piece of Moira is stuck in his head the way Braun is. Is this what he’s come to? Trying to force himself to accept responsibility in the guise of a dear friend? 

“Go away,” Deacon sighs, lacking the energy for a harsher condemnation. 

“You can’t get rid of me, Jack. It doesn’t work like that. You die, I die, _we die_. Don’t you understand?” She huffs a breath in irritation. “One can only hope that he’s better able to convince you of the worth of your life since you’ve clearly stopped listening to me.”

Deacon rolls his eyes and continues on down the corridor, Moira trailing after him. He takes half a dozen steps before it clicks that she mentioned someone else. 

“Who?” he asks, turning to face Moira again.

She raises one eyebrow. “Who what?”

“He. You said ‘he’, like there was someone else here other than me and Braun.”

“Did I?”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose. Of all the times for himself to be stubborn… “Yes. Who are you talkin’ about?”

“You don’t know? You haven’t seen him?”

“Would I be asking if I had?!” he snaps. 

Moira looks at her fingers nails. “I suppose not. It’s Nick.”

“It’s Nick, what?”

“Now who’s being daft?”

Deacon swallows. “Nick's here? Like in here with us?” 

Well, that explains the Jericho bit. He's not ashamed of that and it’s not a particularly bad memory, even if Deacon does occasionally question his choice. 

The two of them spent quite a while together hunting Outcasts, and Deacon was never surprised he eventually went for the man. Jericho was the only one that seemed to think vengeance was a good idea, and at the time, that was exactly what Deacon needed to hear. He would have gone off on his own, but Jericho made sure he stayed alive and mostly sane during that murderous rampage, and for that, he will always be grateful.

Moira nods.

“Tell him to leave; Braun’ll put him through hell.”

“Too late for that.” Moira gestures to the corridor’s wall, and an oval window appears. 

Deacon watches as some man with dark hair and pre-war suit crest the top of the stairs in Savage Zac's house. His stomach drops. Like he needs someone to watch him do _that_ without having any context around the situation. 

Deacon almost turns to Moira to ask who the hell that man is, when it hits him: _that's Nick._ He doesn't look anything like the synth Deacon knows, but there's a crumpled, almost slovenly look, to his pre-war suit that reminds Deacon of a dozen, old cop flicks where the detective had loosed his clothing after a long day. Tie pulled down, buttons undone, suit rumpled from sitting; Nick must have spent a lot of long days at the precinct like this, if this is his mind's permanent impression of himself.

Why did he have to see this memory? _Oh hell,_ he saw that last one with Jericho. 

Braun appears in the room then, a flicker that becomes whole and solid, like a movie reel clocking up to speed. Deacon can’t hear the exchange that goes on between the two of them, but judging by the look on Nick’s face, Deacon guesses that Braun said something to the effect of: “Look, his standards are so low that he'll fuck an ex-raider and a monster, but not a synth.” 

It was a thought he had not too long ago, and Braun is probably making full use of it now. Deacon sighs; this was not the memory of himself he wanted for Nick to reflect upon, and think fondly of when he's gone. Obviously, Braun has to make sure the whole experience is extra painful for both parties. 

“You could do somethin’ about it.” 

Deacon faces Moira again, but the façade is gone. He has to face himself now; heart-patched vest and all. Deacon would rather not have to see that ensemble again: his old face with his new vest; all the parts he tries the hardest to forget in one glaring package.

“Like what? I’m trapped here!”

The other him rolls his eyes. “Honestly, you are so dense they could quarry you for stone. Quit giving Braun control. Your mind. Your memories.”

From the beyond the glass, Nick's voice is clearly heard: “I don’t wanna see this anymore,”

Deacon turn in time to see Braun smirk as he says, “That is unfortunate-” 

“I wasn't talkin' to you,” Nick snaps. “Kid-” Deacon gets a warm, fuzzy feeling every time Nick says that “-show me somethin’ else. Somethin’ that won’t make me want to strangle the next man who looks at you.”

Deacon racks his brain. There really isn't a whole lot he's comfortable with Nick seeing, and certainly not from Deacon’s own perspective.

Unbidden, he thinks of the memory/fantasy that fueled the arousal in that house with Savage Zac. Braun isn't giving Nick any context around these memories, and Nick doesn't know that it was _him_ that Deacon was thinking about. He could offer Nick that, at least.

“About damn time,” his other-self says with some exasperation while glaring at Braun through the glass. “I thought Nick would never ask. I'll distract Braun, you make it a good one, yeah?”

Before Deacon can offer a word of encouragement or protest, the other him is gone and Deacon is alone again in the vault corridor. He glances back to the window and sees that somehow the scenery has changed. It's now the very memory Deacon had thought of the moment Nick asked to see something else, something that won’t make him jealous. Deacon's eyes widen, Nick is _jealous._

He can't help but be slightly smug about that.

This is a good memory to leave on, especially since he's tweaked it to go in a slightly better way. He kind of wants to try and push through, so that he can say goodbye to Nick, but he imagines that there would be a lot of argument over whether or not he should die and he just doesn't have the energy for that. Nick can't stop something he doesn't know about. 

Deacon watches Nick watch the memory/fantasy; he imagined it, he doesn't need to watch it unfold and watching Nick is more fun. Deacon finds it strange that Nick isn’t wearing his hat, and all that hair? God, it’s practically a crime. He fills out a suit quite nicely, even if it is rumpled and creased, and though he's no Rock Hudson, Deacon is certain that between his smirk and quick wit, pre-war Nick was a heart-breaker.

Jenny must have been some kind of girl to win Nick's heart. 

At no point, does Deacon consider that he must be some kind of man to win Nick's heart. The other him is rolling his eyes in disgust as he attempts to sabotage Braun's control; however, without the full cooperation of himself, it's a fool's errand.

Deacons sits on the edge of the window sill. If he were 12, he might blow hot air on the glass and doodle hearts, as it is he merely watches with wistful melancholy. Here it is, the last time he'll set eyes on Nick. His other self might try and draw Nick to something else, to hold on to his piece of life as long as he can, but Deacon is determined to die. 

He isn't needed. In fact, he likes to butt into situations that often don’t need his brand of ‘help’. The Capital has survived without him and the Commonwealth will too. Nora isn’t the first vaultie to wander into the Wastes without a guide. She'll survive. His project at Ticonderoga will survive too. Someone will come along with tech know-how and deal with it, or High Rise will bribe Tinker Tom out into the world with promises of aliens and time travellers. 

Eden's always had great luck that way. 

Deacon shakes his head. He promised himself he wouldn't call it ‘Eden’ until the bits and pieces had reformed into a whole. Who knows, it may not even wish to be called Eden. He doesn't know which parts The President choose to preserve and which to sacrifice for the sake of space; Deacon was too busy visiting the cold corpse of his father. 

He closes his eyes, trying to dispel that memory. If he lingers too long on any one thing, it appears for his viewing, and once he's drawn in, Deacon can't leave until the memory runs its course. It's different when Braun pulls up memories; they're more like movies reels. When he thinks of them himself, he has to relive live them.

Deacon opens his eyes and sighs. The wide halls of Raven Rock surround him. 

All around, there are areas of rubble strewn across the floor from where the walls have buckled under the onslaught of Liberty Prime’s nuclear warheads, and sections of the ceiling are bowing as the support beams bend under the strain of the rock. The power flickers and sparks jump from exposed conduits, but the light of the sentry bot escort is even, and ahead he can see the steady light that marks this area as 1A. All remaining power has been consolidated around the ZAX.

And one cryo-storage pod.

The sentry bot stops outside the door, and there's a moment of silence. Then, gears can be heard grinding to lift the heavy door. It makes it about half-way before there’s the screeching of metal and it comes to a halt. Deacon looks over at the sentry bot in an attempt to get an indication if it is safe to continue, but the robot is indifferent. He crouches and steps under the door, trying not to imagine the gears giving way and the heavy steel crushing him. 

The room is dark, save for the blue light of Eden’s console, and Deacon steps forward carefully, his feet checking the grate underfoot to make sure that it’s still intact. It would be rather ignoble to die from falling from this height after everything he’s been through. Deacon makes it safely to area right in front of the main console and waits. 

The main screen is cracked; a long, single line that separates one-third of the screen from the other. The smaller screens are dark, save for one that is flashing red and keeps repeating ‘ERROR! ERROR!’ in big, block letters. On the side, Deacon can see in dim light of the screens that Eden’s daffodil has suffered in Autumn’s absence -for who else watered the plant? 

That more than anything, effects Deacon. It’s like peering beyond the curtain and realizing that the great Wizard of OZ is nothing more than an old man with a few magic tricks. 

He doesn’t know what to say. It pains him to see the level of destruction around him, and yet he knows what Eden would have done to the Purifier if he had the chance. Deacon doesn’t feel righteous about this ending, though. He just feels…sad; disappointed. 

“I did not expect to see you again, John,” Eden says eventually. “Indeed, I thought that The Brotherhood’s scavengers would be the last people my cameras would capture. In a view, not unlike that of a wounded rabbit spying a vulture hovering nearby.”

“They’re why I’m here,” Deacon replies.

“Oh? Doing The Brotherhood’s dirty work for them? How far the mighty have fallen.”

“No. I’m not here with them, and if you’ll remember, you asked me to do dirty work for you.”

“For your country.”

“For an America that doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did? For a country that took advantage of it’s citizens? For a country that forgot that it was supposed to be ‘Of the People and for the People’? For a country that abused the power given to it by those people? For a country that promised to protect its people and only got them killed?” His voice is rising on every point until he has to take a deep breath to calm himself. “It is any wonder that I refused to do _that_ country’s dirty work?”

Eden huffs a breath of laughter (even living this memory again, Deacon is still amazed at Eden’s ability to replicate such human expressions of emotion; his being was expressed through that voice). “We believe the same things about those that came before; how is that we’ve come to be on disparate sides of this battle?”

“Because, you want the America That Was, and I want the one That Is.” Deacon stares at the cracked screen of Eden’s console. He might be better off to find the red light of a camera, so that he can look the man in the face, but that isn’t Eden. This machine is. “We are a battered and broken collection of the past, cobbled together with bits of Wonder Glue and elbow grease, but we are not worthless. Yes, there are horrible people and creatures out there, but the good outweighs the bad. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. I’ve given it and received it. And just because those people are mutated (whether they’re ghouls, super mutants, or humans) by the actions of those long dead, doesn’t mean that they’re lives are meaningless or worth less than those who are not.”

“If we ever hope to be as we once were-”

“Don’t you get it?” Deacon snaps. “We will never be like that again. That ship has sailed; that bomb has dropped; Humpty Dumpty will never be put back together again.” He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Where’s your Washington? Your Jefferson? Your Lincoln? Your Roosevelt? Your Kennedy? Where are the pieces of you that are shouting that trying to murder the citizen’s of your country is utterly reprehensible and disgusting? Do you think those men would approve of this? _Of you?_ ”

“I-” Eden hesitates and then falls silent. Deacon’s hit a nerve. Eden prides himself on his origin via great presidents. 

“I came here to destroy you,” Deacon says, voice quieted from his previous loud tone. “I can’t let The Brotherhood have you, Eden. They’re preparing to take Adam’s Air Force Base now and I hope they’ll do something good with it, but Lyons won’t be able to hold back the tide of expansion forever.”

“And yet you choose to aid them.”

“I picked the lesser of two evils and now I have to live with those consequences.”

There’s a moment of silence. Eden’s reassessing him. “You don’t trust them.”

It isn’t a question, but Deacon answers anyways. “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t respect what power is.”

To his surprise, Eden starts quoting Tolstoy: “ _…Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the wills of the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person expresses the will of the whole people. That is, power is power.-_ ” 

Deacon finishes the quote with Eden: “ _-That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand._ ”

There’s a heavy silence that settles on them and Deacon can’t bring himself to pull out the scrap of paper he wrote Eden’s self-destruct code on. He knows he must. He knows that he can’t let The Brotherhood get a hold of Eden. Can’t let _Eden_ get a hold of The Brotherhood.

“You know as well as I, that there is nothing I can do to stop you -whether that be destroying what’s left of my servers, or using some pre-war code you undoubtedly scrounged from the good Colonel; the sentry bots are unable to enter this room. And once I’m gone? Well, you won’t have to worry about them. In light of this, perhaps you might be willing to entertain a last request?”

Deacon thinks for a moment, then nods. 

“I ask that you take a copy of my core programming.”

Deacon frowns. “I came here to destroy you and you want me spare your life? That’s a bold request.”

“Fortune favours such things, does it not? Indeed, I have nothing left to lose. I understand that you may be hesitant, but there are a few things I would like to point out if you’ll allow me.”

Deacon takes a seat on a section of rubble and says with all the gravitas of a king, “Well then, entertain me.”

“You jest, but I dare say it will be of some interest. Since you seem to find me so reprehensible, I will point out that my core programming is not who I am as you see me now. It’s exactly as it states it is: core. The basis on which my self-awareness is built. A copy of that will undoubtedly form into something other than who I am now because of alternative circumstances -after all, I doubt you’ll find another pre-war ZAX computer just lying around.”

“You’re assuming that I would even deign to plug you back in.”

“A chance at life is better than no chance at all.” Deacon imagines that if Eden could, he would have shrugged just then. “Granted, I wouldn’t be completely different -what are we but a collection of natural and learned behaviours?- but perhaps that shift would be enough to sway you.”

Deacon picks up a small piece of rubble and bounces it in his hand. “Maybe. What else you got?”

Truth be told, he doesn’t want to destroy Eden and a core program copy is not a bad idea. He could both prevent Eden and his information from falling into The Brotherhood’s hands and not have to kill him. However, he would have the burden of Eden constantly on his consciousness. Could he handle that? Does he want to? 

Deacon already knows the answer to that, but this memory won’t stop playing until it’s done. 

“How about a simple trade? I saved your life, and I now ask that you grant me mine.”

“What? When? In that locked cell with Autumn?”

“The Colonel was supposed to bring you here as a guest, not as a prisoner, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to treat you in that manner.” Eden sounds supremely annoyed. “It was only right that I corrected his mistake. No. What I am referring to is your time in Vault 112.”

“How did you…?”

Eden chuckles. “In one of life’s great ironies, I was programmed to monitor the prototype computer constructed for Vault 112 in case there were ever any malfunctions. However, considering the excellent state most of RobCo’s computers and various technologies are still in, Dr. Braun would have been better off to trust the genius of Robert House.

“I didn’t know it was you and your father at first -I was never allowed that level of access, and so when I received notification that two new residents had joined the vault, I assumed they were scavers or raiders. When the failsafe program was activated it was somewhat of a surprise, but not wholly unexpected. From what I’ve read in the military’s files on Dr. Braun, he had requested that ‘Chinese Invasion’ program as a means to die if he ever tired of simulated life.”

“But it didn’t kill him,” Deacon says, angry both then and now at Braun’s apparent inability to die.

“No. I am unaware if Dr. Braun knew that as a top level Vault-Tec employee, that any military simulation has secondary failsafe’s to prevent the death of both top-level military and Vault-Tec personnel. If he had, perhaps he never would have requested the simulation in the first place.”

“He knew. I think he found out after, though.” Deacon looks past Eden’s cracked screen, face hard. “Why didn’t you do something then?”

“This may come as a shock to you,” Eden replies, somewhat sardonically, “but I’m still bound by the restrictions and protocols placed on my programming. As there was nothing wrong with the main computer of the vault and Dr. Braun was still whole and hale, there was nothing for me _to_ do.”

“Then how…?”

“All restrictions and protocols are up for interpretation,” Eden says with a sly smile in his voice. “My number one priority has always been continuity of government and the restoration of America. When I realized that the reason there had been no chatter about you in the Capital’s various towns or sightings by my eyebots, was because you had apparently gone missing, I deduced that the newest occupants of Vault 112 were you and your father.

“It was pure happenstance that James was the scientist working on the restoration of Project Purity; I was more concerned about the young vault dweller who had made such an impact on the Capital in the few shorts weeks he had been roaming it. From the moment you started becoming a recognized and important force in the Capital, I wanted to meet you. I had hoped we might work together. Of course, such a thing couldn’t happen if you were trapped in Vault 112.

“I attempted to reason with Dr. Braun, and to negotiate your release. However, it seemed 200-years spent as a virtual god had given the man somewhat of a complex. He believed that his own personal gain trumped the good of the country.”

Deacon reluctantly smirks and shakes his head. Braun had essentially killed himself. “And that gave you an in.”

“Indeed. Thus, I terminated his life support. Once he was dead, his controls were void and I was able to release you and your father from his simulation.”

There is silence while Deacon processes this information. Then Eden asks:

“Have you never wondered how you escaped?”

“I thought maybe it was a malfunction of the ‘Chinese Invasion’ program, but to be honest, I just wanted to be as far way from that place as possible and never think on it again.”

“Ah… I’m sorry you suffered at his hands.”

“Well, you kept it from being eternal suffering, so thank you. But, considering how things have worked out, I’ll understand if you don’t want that thanks.”

“Nonsense. Who’s to say how it might have all worked out in the end? It could be that I would have ended up here all the same, but instead would now be conversing with a few backwards Brotherhood scribes rather than you. Given the choice, I much prefer this outcome. After all, you’re the far superior conversationalist.”

Deacon laughs somewhat at the compliment, the strange turn of events that have left him in Eden’s debt, and the Brotherhood snub. Then he becomes thoughtful.

“You said before that there were a few things. That implies more than two. Was there something else?” Deacon asks.

“Yes. This last thing I tell you without an ulterior motive. Your father’s body is in cryo-storage here, if you wish to retrieve him and bury him.”

Deacon is stunned silent. The Brotherhood told him all sorts of nightmarish tales of the things The Enclave would do with a corpse. He didn’t actually believe them, but he didn’t expect The Enclave to go to the trouble of keeping his dad’s body. 

“Why? Why did you take him?” He can’t keep his voice steady. He’s not sure if he’s angry or grief-stricken. Maybe both. 

Why does he have to keep reliving this pain?

“To save his life. Unfortunately, the radiation damage was too severe. I asked his body be preserved as a peace offering. One I never got to offer.”

“Until now.”

“Until now.”

Deacon puts his head in hands as he considers Eden’s last request. As he’s staring at the grated floor, the blue and red lights of Eden’s screens flicker and die. Deacon’s head snaps up. There’s the echoing sound of Eden’s servers shutting down, and he’s cast into darkness. He blinks against the black, standing to see if the light of the sentry bot is visible under the door. 

He’s not surprised when he doesn’t spot it. This isn’t how this memory ended.

Suddenly, there is a sharp, strong pain that lances through his chest, and Deacon cries out. He stumbles forward a step; his hand shooting up to clutch at his heart. It feels like the treacherous thing was ripped out and his hand is wet where it touches his chest. He wonders if it’s blood, or something else entirely, only because of the place he’s in.

Deacon sinks to his knees and tries to breathe against the pain that seems to swell with every breath. He doesn’t realize that his eyes have fallen shut until he hears a disapproving tutting above him and looks around for the source of it- 

-and finds himself back in the vault corridor with Betty. Her crisp, pink dress, perfectly-polished dress slippers, and blond hair are almost blinding in their colour intensity.

“Did you think conjuring Eden’s memory would scare me?” Betty asks, her voice full of dark amusement.

“Not everything is about you,” Deacon replies, voice tight with pain. He pulls his hand back from his chest to look at it, and finds it covered in blood. Well, that answers that question.

Betty crouches. “Oh, that looks nasty. It seems The Lone Wanderer has finally ‘given up the ghost’, as it were.” 

Oddly, he’s saddened by the idea that The Lone Wanderer has given up on him. Ironic, since he’s the one that had distanced himself from that piece of himself. A classic case of never appreciating what you had until it’s gone. Oh well, he won’t be here for very much longer. 

Betty pokes at the wound and Deacon recoils in pain. Then, she traces the edges of it with one finger, strangely thoughtful. When she gets to the end, Deacon realizes she’s traced the shape of a heart. Betty shakes her head in amusement and stands. 

“Come with me,” she says. “We’re almost done. Just a few more things to do, and then it can be all over.”

As she walks away, Deacon feels the compulsion to follow. He stands on shaky legs and stumbles down the hall after her, knowing full well that he’s walking to into a fresh Hell.

\- - - - -

When the kid has disappeared completely, Nick looks out across town to the large neon sign that proclaims: VAULT 112. How do you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? 

Nick knows you can’t. 

He’s lived long enough to know that people have to save themselves. They have to fight; you can’t do it for them. So what does the kid think Nick can do for the part of him that doesn’t want to live? Nick’s never been one for speeches and carefully crafted words. That’s the kid’s territory, and if he can’t convince himself, what chance does Nick have?

He sighs and wishes he had a cigarette. Then, Nick looks at the fabric heart in his hand. 

It’s a representation of something, but of what, he’s not sure. He doubts it’s as simple as it being the kid’s heart -very little about the kid is simple. Nick turns the heart over in his hands, curious to see if there’s anything else to it other than brightly dyed fabric. He must have been given it for a reason.

On the back, in what looks like chalk, a single word is scrawled.

_Jack._

Nick closes his fist around the fabric heart and grins. 

Suddenly, there’s the screeching of metal, and the entire structure underfoot shakes and groans. Nick grasps onto the railing around the platform and shoves the heart into his coat’s pocket. In the center of town, he can see that the whole place is shuddering under some unknown assault and is starting to come apart. Buildings are beginning to collapse as their metal struts twist and bend; signs are falling off and landing in the dirt of the crater with a puff of dust. Sheets of steel are shaking loose, wobbling in their demise and making a strange, almost sorrowful, sound as they fall. 

Panic lances through Nick. Does this mean he’s too late? He can’t be. He _won’t_ be. 

Nick sets off at a run around the house as another quake shakes the place. He stumbles and catches himself on the side of the building before he continues on. The steps down to the center of the crater are hard to navigate with the ground lurching underfoot and his only saving grace is the large pipe that runs alongside as it prevents him from fully hitting the ground when the quakes rock the place. 

As he reaches the bottom of the crater, the sign above Doc Church’s clinic dislodges. Nick has to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit by the thing. He doesn’t know what might happen to him if he’s injured in this place, or worse, struck by a killing blow. Will he just be forced out and back into reality, or might he actually die? It’s a not question he’s looking to answer, so it’s safest to just avoid death as best he can. 

Nick dashes around the fallen sign and starts up the ramp to the top-most part of the town. The quakes become more and more violent, shaking the ramp and pulling it from where it’s bolted to the buildings, bolted to sections of itself, and where it’s bolted to the struts that keep it off the ground. Pieces start falling from under his feet, and gaps start opening; forcing him to leap over them. Like they did that night they saved Marty and Skinny from Sunny Soto. 

Christ, that seems like a lifetime ago. 

He scrambles up the last ramp and it dislodges from the platform just as he crests the top of it. Nick stumbles and trips, hitting the upper platform hard, knocking his knees and jaw in the impact. He swears and hustles to his feet as the platform begins to go the way of the ramp. 

The door to the ‘VAULT 112’ building is close and Nick runs full bore at it. He has no other conscious thought than that of escape, and so he doesn’t even consider that he might have to stop and yank the door open. Perhaps, that’s the reason why he simply passes through it, as if there were nothing there at all. 

Could be that this is something the kid did for him, or just a by-product of the town collapsing? Either way, Nick’s forward momentum carries him through. He had been expecting resistance, and when there’s none, Nick stumbles under the conflicting desires to both keep running from the previous danger and slow in face of the new one. 

He briefly wonders if this is what Alice felt as she travelled through the ever changing world of Wonderland: both exasperated at the inability of the world to make sense, and amazement at a place that defies all normal logic. 

Of course, Wonderland was probably less horrific than this place because if the memory of James’ death was bad, this place is clearly the kid’s nightmare. 

He’s standing in the entrance of a vault, the dim lights of the room highlighting the gear-shaped opening. It’s the only indication that he is in a vault because the rest of the room’s tell-tale vault trapping are blocked by a two parallel stacks of corpses that form a narrow corridor from the door to some unseen place. 

Nick steps up to the vault door to examine the bodies. They’re piled in a manner reminiscent of bricks, with an errant leg or arm hanging loosely into the free space of the corridor. Judging from the various outfits that are visible, most of them are some form of raiders, but every once and a while he spies pieces of dark or rusted power armour, suggesting that this is some sort of grisly tally. 

Along the floor of the corridor, sparsely strewn, are more bodies, but given that they aren’t sections of the corridor’s walls, there must be something special about them.

Some people make a notch on their weapons, the kid apparently keeps a mental list of all the people he’s ever killed. Surely, it’s an exaggeration, though -as the corridor continues out of sight- because Nick’s far older than the kid, and he hasn’t killed the quarter of the people he sees here. 

Just outside the vault door, a body of a man is lying face down on the few feet of grated, steel floor in front of the door. He’s wearing a lab coat, a Pipboy, and just beyond the edges of the coat, Nick can see the blue of a vault suit. He crouches and carefully pulls up the lab coat; he isn’t the least bit surprised to see ‘101’ on the back of the jumpsuit. 

Nick turns the man over and immediately spots his cause of death, even in this poor light; a gunshot wound to the chest. Judging from the burnt edges of the man’s vault suit around the wound, it was close range. The young man is probably a couple years older than the kid is now, dark hair and skin, glasses askew on his face, and he looks…soft. Not like a Waster, a Vaultie through and through.

There seems to be a special significance to the man’s position outside the door, and away from the walls of corpses. Considering his vault suit, it’s possible he was the first person Deacon ever killed. Maybe there was bad blood between the kid and his vault. Nick shakes his head; that doesn’t…feel right. He looks again between the bodies in the aisle of the corridor and then this one. 

Outside the door.

If that’s a tally, then this man is…what?

He sighs and stands, looking down the corridor of bodies. He doesn’t relish the idea walking through such a macabre scene, but somewhere down there is Deacon and judging from the destruction of Megaton he just barely escaped, time is rapidly running out. Nick steels himself and starts down the corridor, sparing the man outside the door one last look, certain he’s missed something important.

The first body on the floor of the corridor is another member of the kid’s vault. He’s lying on his side, so Nick can see the ‘101’ on the back of his body armour (not unlike that what SWAT teams used to wear before the war). Half of his face is torn to shreds by a close range, gunshot wound. If Nick had to guess, maybe a .357 or a 10mm round. He steps around the body and continues on.

He’s probably gone about 30 feet or so when he comes across James’ body slumped against the side of the corpse wall. Nick crouches and looks at him. He’s covered in burns and sores from his radiation exposure, but why is he here? If this is a tally of people the kid’s killed, James shouldn’t be here. Nick watched that memory, it wasn’t Deacon’s fault. He didn’t kill James; if anything, James killed himself. 

“What are you thinkin’, kid?” Nick mutters to himself and stands. He’s going to have to find Deacon if he wants answers.

As he continues down the corridor, Nick comes across many other bodies. One of them is a man in combat armour and he has strange symbol painted on his chest. It’s a circle with a bolt, or maybe it’s a rivet, inside, with the letters RC painted on the arm. Next, he comes across the man he saw in the memory of James’ death. The one with the plasma pistol. There’s a single gunshot wound to his forehead; an execution if Nick ever saw one. 

The kid’s temper is be a terrible thing to have turned on you.

Wait, why is this man here? Nick doesn’t have much of a frame of reference for this period of the kid’s life, but this man died with James. They were in that chamber together, and yet there’s a body between them here. Did he survive that chamber? The bullet in his head seems to suggest that’s so. This has got to be a hell of a story; Nick wishes he could see it, or hear it.

He wishes he could be trusted with it.

There’s a long stretch where there isn’t anything but the bodies that make up the wall of the corridor, just darkness stretching at either end, and an abundance of black power armour that fades into raiders again. Then, he comes to a jumble of bodies; more than a dozen, and all of them wearing Vault 101 suits. Nick carefully picks his way through them, observing laser burns on all the bodies. 

At the very end of the jumble, there’s a young woman positioned differently than the others. As if someone had come along, moved her away from the rest, and tried to give her respect by laying her on her back, arms crossed over her chest. The position of her hands slightly covers a tight grouping of laser fire burns. No group of raiders killed these people and considering the fact that James in with this bunch, Nick can’t be certain that the kid did either. 

He wonders then if he’s following in Deacon’s footsteps. Perhaps the kid had passed through this horrible place and fixed this one woman’s position before moving on. If that’s true, he didn’t take the same care with his dad and that’s… _odd._ There’s so much grief over his death, and yet the kid didn’t take the time to arrange him -to honour him. Maybe Nick’s got it wrong and the kid he hasn’t been through here. 

Or maybe, he’s angry because an enemy made it out of that radiation soaked chamber, and his father didn’t. 

Nick sighs and moves on. He doesn’t understand and seeing it piecemeal like this is only raising more questions. 

There’s another long stretch of bare floor. Longer than even the one before, full of rusted power armour that seems to have no apparent end in sight. This must be when Deacon killed all those Brotherhood Outcasts. Nick glances back behind him, wondering if the deaths of those vault dwellers has anything to do with sudden power armour collection, but the ground is lost to shadows. When he looks forward again, Nick spots a door and a final body. At this point, he’s not surprised by the mercurial nature of this place, but he’s about done with it.

As he approaches, Nick recognizes the body. One that brings his own pain, rather than the shared experience of Deacon’s. It’s Tom; bloody, gutted mess and everything. Nick can hardly even stand to look at him without feeling his own sense of guilt and remorse over the young man’s death. 

Tom’s presence seems to confirm the idea that this isn’t necessarily a tally, more like a sense of responsibility. These people’s lives are on the kid’s conscious, and he feels like their deaths are his fault, either directly or indirectly. It must be a helluva burden. There’s a few death’s that weigh heavily on Nick’s conscious, Tom being one of them, but the sheer number of people Nick saw is staggering. It has to be an exaggeration because he’s not sure how the kid could still be sane if it’s not.

Nick wonders if he should take a moment and rearrange Tom from his slumped position against the corpse wall, but there’s a sudden shriek from beyond the vertical, vault door and he’s reminded that his purpose is to try and save someone from death. Tom’s already gone, and there isn’t a damn thing he can do for him, but he can still try and do something for Deacon.

He steps over Tom’s outstretched legs, sparing him one last look before he heads to the door. 

On the side, is a switch marked OVERRIDE with a knob and two positions labeled ‘On’ and ‘Off’. The knob is pointing to ‘Off’, so Nick twists it to the ‘On’ position. There’s a hiss of escaping air as hydraulics pull the door open and up. Nick steps through into another hallway, but this one is short, thankfully free of bodies, and leads to a ‘T’ intersection. 

There’s another shriek; it echoes down the hall, bouncing off the metal walls. Nick starts off at a trot, trying to follow it back to the source. At the ‘T’, he pauses, looking right and then left. There a room with a window to the right with a flickering sign over the door that says ‘Cafeteria’, and a hallway that disappears around a corner. To the left, there’s more hall and another corner. Nick rules out the cafeteria as his destination and decides to chance going left. 

As he nears the corner of the hall, he hears another scream, louder than before. He’s going the right way and Nick picks up his pace, rounding the corner at a run. He comes to a halt at another ‘T’ intersection; there’s the option to continue going straight or going left. He notes a bright light shining from the window of the room ahead of him that is momentarily blocked by a body passing in front of its source. 

Bingo.

Nick dashes to the room and flicks the switch to open the door, glancing quickly upwards at the sign above it. ‘Clinic’ it says and the sight of it makes the pit of his stomach drop. Instinctively, he reaches inside of his coat for his gun, but his holster is missing. Whether that’s Braun’s doing or his own mind, Nick isn’t sure, but it’s damn inconvenient. He curls his fists in frustration and heads into the room, unarmed and unprepared.

There’s a privacy screen shielding a gurney, and a harsh overhead lamp casting the shadows of three different people: two standing, and one on the gurney. Nick rounds the end of the screen and recoils at the gruesome sight before him. 

Deacon is standing next to the gurney, a pair of large shears in his hand. The nose of which is buried in a man’s open chest as Deacon carefully snips through his ribs. The man is wearing a lab coat and a vault suit, the latter of which has been cut open around his chest and peeled back to allow access to his flesh. Flesh that has been sliced apart and pinned back so that the bare bones of his ribcage are on display.

As Nick comes to a stunned stop, Deacon snips through another rib; the man screams. 

Braun is standing at the head of the gurney, watching Deacon’s progress with great interest. As the kid moves up to the next rib, Braun makes a _‘Wait just a moment,’_ noise. 

“Thirteen,” the kid says, voice monotone. 

Braun waves him on while sparing Nick a brief smirk.

Nick darts to Deacon’s side and rips the shears from his grasp; there’s a shocking contrast between their two colourings. The kid is so washed out; he seems grey compared to Nick. 

“What the hell are you doin’?” he demands. Nick spares the man on the gurney a quick look, and does a double take in surprise. It’s the young man from outside the vault door. 

The kid blinks and looks at Nick in some surprise. “Nick?” Then: “You’re not supposed to be here. You should go,” he says in the same monotone as before. It doesn’t sound a like the young man he knows.

“The hell I will,” Nick snaps. “I’m not about to leave you to _his_ mercy.”

Deacon turns away. “It’s for the best -it’s what I deserve. Just…go.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you to remember me like this.”

Nick grabs his arm and turns him. “Then let’s go. We can make new memories. He doesn’t control you.”

“You don’t understand, Nick-”

“Then make me.”

Deacon makes an impatient face, but at least it’s an emotion. “I don’t have time for that.”

“Am I just supposed to trust you on it, then? ‘Cause let me tell you, kid, there’s a helluva lot of things I trust you on, but this ain’t one of ‘em.”

“Why?”

Nick gives an incredulous huff of laughter. “Why? Are you kiddin’ me, kid? I trust that you know what you're doin’ when it comes to getting’ out of life-threatening situations, but whatever reasons you’ve got for wantin’ to meet your Maker, I guarantee they ain’t yours. They’re his.” 

Nick points at Braun and Deacon’s gaze follows his finger, hesitantly reassessing the situation. If Nick could just find that fire, that anger that the kid wields with such devastation, Braun wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Do you want to get to that Final Place and realize that there was so much you left behind and left unfinished because you allowed Braun manipulate you?” Nick pulls the fabric heart from his coat pocket; there’s a bloody mess on the front of the kid’s vault suit and a gaping hole in the same shape as the heart Nick now holds in his hand. “Jack,” he says and Deacon’s eyes snap to his, “don’t go.”

Nick’s about to press the fabric heart to the kid’s chest, hoping that it’ll fix itself, when Braun suddenly starts clapping.

“Bravo,” he says. “Brilliant performance. One might almost believe you really were Nick Valentine, but we know the truth, don’t we?” Braun looks to Deacon. “This is just another one of The Lone Wanderer’s tricks. First Moira, now Nick. Does he ever wear his own face?”

Deacon stares at Nick in surprise, a look of utter betrayal sliding over his face. _’How could you?’_ it says. Then, he pulls his arm from Nick’s grasp.

“He’s lyin’, kid. I’m me.” Nick reaches for Deacon, but he backs away.

Braun looks at Nick and smiles. “But how could you ever prove it? After all, the two of you share the same memories, and The Wanderer knows just what buttons to push.”

Nick has never wanted to kill someone more than he wants to kill Braun in that moment. 

“You told me Nick was here. Why would you lie to me?” Deacon asks him, voice becoming angry. This is not how Nick imagined this would go. 

Goddamnit! Braun’s pulled a hell of a number with this. He knows just what the kid fears.

“I _am_ here and I’d never lie to you. That other part of you? He left me this;-” Nick holds up the fabric heart. “-it looks like you’re missin’ a piece.”

Deacon’s hand flutters up to his chest, barely touching the edges of the wound. “It aches,” he says.

“Don’t doubt it. Take it.”

“And what?” Braun asks, causing the kid’s hand to falter before he graps the heart. “Return to the Commonwealth so you might muck it up in the same way you did the Capital? They don’t need your meddling, Jack. Haven’t you learned to leave well enough alone?”

Nick snarls at Braun but looks at Deacon as he speaks. “Don’t listen to him. He’s dead. A rottin’ corpse in a vault; unmourned and forgotten. That’s what’s _you_ told me.” He presses the fabric heart against the wound in the kid’s chest, but there isn’t any sort of miraculous healing -his two halves are still in disagreement. “Stay,” Nick rumbles, voice dropping low as he steps close. “And this time, don’t tell me you can’t, because we both know that’s a lie. What’s more, you don’t want to go. I saw it that night you left Diamond City; you didn’t want to leave, and I, like a Goddamned moron, didn’t call you on it. Well, I am this time, kid; Deacon; _Jack_.”

“Nick, I-”

“Stay.”

“ _Nick-_ ”

“Stay.”

“I-”

Nick can’t stand the idea of listening to another word of protest, and kisses Deacon. He can’t stand to hear the kid say he deserves to die, or that his life isn’t worth anything, or he’s somehow the cause of so much death. Not this kid. Not Deacon. Not Jack. 

There’s a moment of resistance from Deacon, and Nick wonders if he’s made a huge mistake, then there’s a searing heat under his hand and Nick snatches it back from the kid’s chest as he pulls away. Deacon gasps, colour rushing back into him as if he was Dorothy visiting the land of OZ. Nick is about to ask if he’s alright when Deacon yanks him forward for another kiss.

It’s wet, and desperate, and messy, and Nick’s head is suddenly swimming with the intensity of it all. Then, there’s a sudden, massive force rammed into his chest, like a super mutant behemoth has punched him, and Nick flies back several feet, smashing into an instrument tray, and then finally the wall. He grunts in pain and tries to get his bearings; he might have been winded, had he air to breathe in a place like this. 

As he finds his footing, he looks over to where the kid was standing, expecting to see Braun trying to manipulate the situation once again, but Nick is horrified to find that the man has apparently given up on the subtle and decided to get hands on. Braun has both his hands around the kid’s neck and has him pressed against the wall of the clinic as he tries to crush the life out of him. Nick scrambles upright, and dives at the two of them meaning to tackle the sonvabitch to the ground, but all he comes up with is a handful of air. 

Nick whirls, but he’s the only one left in the clinic. Deacon, Braun, even the man on the gurney is gone. He swears and runs to the door. If there’s ever a time to hope for a disorienting memory shift, it’s now. It seems to take an age for the door to shift upwards enough for Nick to get through, but when he finally does, Nick finds himself staring a set of concrete steps heading upward and a metal door clicking closed behind him.

Nick glances at the cinderblock walls around him, a pair of a worn signs tell him that he’s currently standing outside PARK STREET STATION. He’s in Boston; he’s in The Common. Nick takes the stairs two at a time. 

It’s dark outside and the only light is coming from the Park Street Station entrance. There’s a bunch of bodies lying on the ground, and Nick looks for any sign of the kid or Braun. To the left, there a large fire blazing in the ruined husk of a car and the familiarity of the situation nags at Nick. He looks the bodies again. They’re wearing worn, Old-World suits and hats, and bent submachine guns litter the ground. There’s no blood, but there are burn marks on all the bodies.

The Common, Triggermen, laser fire, and a burning car? This is the night they fought the Courser. _Fuck._ Nick takes off at a run, up the street. He’s headed for the bridge they crossed to get to Ticonderoga, knowing that’s where they had their final showdown, and hopes that the kid’s knowledge of Boston’s streets is as comprehensive as his. He’d hate to turn down a street and find nothing. 

There are super mutants hanging out in the building just across the street from the alley to Goodneighbour and they shout at him as he goes by. A few bullets ping off the rubble around him, but Nick doesn’t spare them a moment of his time. When he reaches the Mass Fusion building, he veers left, taking what was no doubt the same route the Courser took to reach them that night.

It takes several minutes to get from The Common the area near the bridge, but when he’s a couple blocks away, Nick can see the orange light of a fire burning in a barrel and the struggles of two people. He sprints up the street, pushing himself to go faster and faster because if he makes it there too late after all this, Nick isn’t sure what he’ll do. He can’t even bear the thought. 

Braun manages to get the upper hand while Nick is still a half a block away, and grabs Deacon by the throat, lifting him off the ground like the Courser did all those months ago. He seems to delight in making the kid relive bad memories, and this is a _bad_ memory. For them both. 

Nick barrels into Braun, hoping to dislodge him, but like what happened in the clinic, Nick passes right through him. 

Braun laughs. “You aren’t of this place, Mr. Valentine. You can’t effect change here.”

Nick whirls, frustrated and angry. Around them, the distant buildings are starting to fade and darkness is beginning to encroach on them. The kid is still struggling, but if it’s anything like the last time, he hasn’t got long. Nick tries to grab Deacon from Braun’s grasp, but again, he gets nothing but a handful of air. As long as Braun is in control, Nick can’t touch them. 

_Damnit!_ What is he supposed to do? 

The darkness is approaching faster and faster, and the kid’s struggles are getting weaker. Nick is desperate; he’ll never forgive himself if Deacon dies here, but how can he stop something he can’t touch?

Then, Nick gets an idea. He may not be of this place, but he knows how this memory actually went. He knows there’s a tire iron with a blade on the ground around here somewhere. Nick starts searching, but without his ability to see in the dark, it’s more difficult than it was the last time. He can’t see much outside the circle of the fire’s light and time is rapidly running out.

As he’s groping around in the dark, his foot kicks something a couple feet forward, into the firelight. It’s Deacon’s plasma pistol. Nick’s face lights in a grim grin; finally, something in his favour. He grabs it from the ground and rushes Braun before he has the opportunity to react. Nick jumps through the pair of them (while Braun laughs at his apparent idiocy) and aims Deacon’s plasma pistol and the back of Braun’s head. 

He shoots; the whirr of plasma pistol firing is nothing in the face of Braun’s scream as the back of his head melts into a sludge of plasmatic goo. Nick has to give it to the kid because he’s got a hell of an imagination. Braun releases Deacon and Nick heads to his side, shooting Braun in the back as insurance. 

The kid is kneeling on the ground, choking and coughing, exactly as Nick remembers after he cut the Courser’s arm off and pried its hand from around Deacon’s neck. When he has gathered enough of his breath back, the kid snarls at Braun’s wailing form:

“ _Fuck off._ ” 

and the man vanishes. 

Nick crouches, pistol hanging from his hand as he rests his one arm on his thigh, and gives Deacon a small smile. The kid doesn’t return it; just looks away and closes his eyes. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Nick says and the kid nods, solemn.

Suddenly, Dr. Amari’s voice echoes around them. 

“Mr. Valentine, Deacon has surfaced. I’m cutting your connection and pulling you both out. Please stand by.”

Then, the whole world flickers for a second time…

…and goes dark.

Nick blinks as the real world solidifies around him. The hatch of the Memory Lounger lifts silently, and once it’s reached it zenith, Amari leans in and disconnects the cable from the back of Nick’s neck. The return of his synth senses is a bit overwhelming and it takes Nick a moment to readjust after his sojourn into the kid’s head. His internal chronometer tells him that 6 hours, 23 minutes, and 14 seconds have passed since he first entered the Lounger.

“How is he?” Nick asks once he’s orientated again and Amari has slotted the small disk of synthetic skin back into its home at the back of his neck. 

“Weak, but alive. Though for a moment, I thought…” Amari shakes her head as if to dispel that thought. “I’m bringing him out slowly to help his mind adjust.”

There’s a muffled noise from the other Lounger, and the kid starts banging on the glass. So much for slowly. Amari quickly crosses to the other Lounger and Nick hops out of his. As the hatch lifts, Amari beings telling Deacon to breathe and not over exert himself because he's weakened from his ordeal. 

The kid doesn’t listen. 

As soon as the hatch is high enough, he scrambles out of the Lounger. His movements are clumsy and he spills onto the floor in an ungraceful heap. Nick grabs a hold of Deacon’s arm, meaning to help him, but the kid pulls away, eyes large and haunted. He scurries across the floor on shaky legs, and out the door. 

Amari calls after him, her steps right behind Nick as he chases after Deacon. 

The kid makes it to the stairs, and climbs a couple before his exertion catches up to him and he starts to sink. Nick snags him.

“Easy, kid,” he says. “You’re in no shape to be runnin’ around half-cocked.”

“I am never half-cocked,” Deacon replies, almost automatically, but there’s a hint of indignation that makes Nick grin slightly. “I am only ever full-cocked or not at all. I know my gun safety, Mr. Valentine.”

From behind them, Amari says, “I suppose I’ll take that as a sign of your mental health, Deacon: that you can joke so soon after an ordeal such as that.”

The kid looks over Nick’s shoulder and gives Amari a very grim and solemn look. She’s about to apologise for making light of the situation when Deacon speaks.

“Doctor Amari, I have a confession; my secret, I must now betray. I was not a born fool. It took work to get this way.”

There’s silence from Amari -Nick imagines that her face is the picture of both confused and concerned, but Nick starts laughing. Is there a movie this kid can’t quote?

“Let me guess,” Nick says, laughter still evident in his voice, “When you were a lad, you were gloomy and sad, and you were from day you were born?”

Deacon gives him a smile, it’s both mischievous and…something else that Nick can’t quite name, but it doesn’t matter, he’s just relieved to see the kid smile.

“Something like that. When other lads giggled and gurgled and wiggled, I proudly was loudly forlorn.”

“Indeed?” Amari says, stepping up to them, and pulling a penlight from her pocket. Nick eases the kid down on the stairs and then sits beside him. “Did you have to relive a great deal of traumatic memories?”

Deacon shoots Nick a smirk. Amari isn’t wrong in her assumption, but if she’s basing it on the two of them quoting a Danny Kaye song…well, she clearly hasn’t watched any old holovids. Not her fault Nick supposes, where would she see one? Or find one? Nick only remembers that particular song because Jenny went through a phase where she would only paint while listening to Danny Kaye. Before that, it was Fred Astaire. After, it was Dean Domino. 

She bounced all over the decades.

“Unfortunately,” Deacon replies. “But fortunately, they sent for a witch with a terrible twitch to ask how my future impressed her. She took one look at me and cried: He? What else could be, but a jester!”

Amari puts her penlight away and looks at Deacon with narrowed eyes. “Shall I put, ‘Well enough to make a fool of his doctor’ in the column under ‘Stable Mental Health?” she asks with no little sarcasm.

Nick snorts.

“Make a fool of you? Why my, dear, Doctor Amari, I would never,” Deacon says with mock hurt. “For I’m proud to recall that in no time at all-” the kid leans in as if imparting a secret “-with no other recourses but my own resources, I might add. With firm application and _determination…_ I made a fool of myself!”

“You needn't finish reciting whatever pre-war nonsense you are on about, Deacon. I’m quite aware you’re a fool,” Amari replies with a smirk.

Nick starts laughing lowly.

“What you do need to do is find a bed here so that I can start you on a saline drip. You’re severely dehydrated; frankly, it’s a wonder you can joke at all.”

Deacon’s good humour vanishes in an instant. “I’m not staying here. Not with all those _Loungers_ everywhere.”

He says Loungers the same way one might say ‘muties’ or ‘ferals’: with utter contempt and disdain. Nick hardly blames him. He’s not all that comfortable with the things after this recent experience.

“You’re in no shape to travel to HQ, or even to Diamond City,” Amari says.

The kid stands, shakily, but determined to leave; he uses Nick’s shoulder for leverage. “Then, I guess I’ll just have to impose myself the Mayor’s kindness.”

Amari raises an eyebrow. “Staying at the Rexford is hardly an imposition on Mayor Hancock.”

Deacon huffs a breath of laughter that has him swaying, and Nick catches his arm to steady him. The kid looks momentarily annoyed at his weakness, then: “I barely like staying there when I’m healthy, I’m sure as hell am not bunking there now that I’m not. You can find me convalescing at the Old State House.”

With that, the kid begins to hobble up the stairs as Amari sighs behind him and returns to her lab, no doubt to collect her medical things. Nick helps the kid up the first flight, but by the time they’ve reached the top, he winded and weak. Rolling his eyes at Deacon’s stubbornness, Nick sweeps the kid up and starts up the next flight of stairs. He hardly weighs a thing compared to the last time Nick had to carry him.

“Great. Now I’ll be the laughing stock of Goodneighbour,” Deacon says, without any heat in his voice. “Move over Crazy Old Maurice; Deacon has come to take your crown.

Nick snorts. “At least now, you’ll get to the Old State House before you end up Crazy _Old_ Deacon.”

“Hmm, true.”

Nick crests the top of the stairs and heads into the main area of The Memory Den. The kid curls in on himself, falling tellingly quiet as they near the rest of the Memory Loungers. Nick is careful to keep his distance from them. When Irma notes their presence and is about to make a comment, Nick slightly shakes his head. She falls quiet with a nod, but her sharp eyes take in everything.

Deacon unfurls as they make it into the entrance hall, and manages to get the door before Nick has to ask him to. 

Outside, Goodneighbour has shifted into nighttime mode, and the air is crisp and cool. The kid folds his arms together against cold and Nick mentally kicks himself for not thinking to grab Deacon’s jacket. After the kid’s settled, he’ll head back and collect their things. 

A few of the Neighbourhood Watch track their progress across the street and to Old State House’s door across from the Rexford Hotel, but they aren’t stopped as they head inside. Nick climbs the main staircase without any hesitation. It’s not yet late enough for Hancock to abandon his rooms and hang out in The Third Rail; he should still be around. 

“Know the Illustrious Mayor, Nick?” the kid asks.

He makes a noise of confirmation. “Beat a helluva trail following him to this place once. You?”

“Sure. Helped him one time.”

“He seemed pretty interested in your case. Fahrenheit asked me to stop by after you were…successfully resolved.”

Deacon smirks. “Probably just wanted to make sure I didn’t shoot any more locks.”

Nick raises an eyebrow in question, and Deacon waves him off. _‘Later,’_ it says. 

At the door to Hancock’s room, Nick sets Deacon down under Fahrenheit’s watchful gaze. The kid gives her a wide smile, that stretches his new face, and asks to see Hancock -he can’t feel that cheerful after everything he’s been through. The kid’s latest face is nothing like the ones he saw in Deacon’s memories, and yet, it’s oddly familiar. Every time he looks at it, Nick’s thinks, _I know you. Where do I know you from?_

Fahrenheit opens the door, tells the Mayor it’s Deacon and Valentine, and without waiting for an answer, shoves the door open further for the two of them. Nick provides his arm for the kid to cling to and as they step inside. 

Hancock is seated on one of the room’s two couches, jacket slung over the arm, hat tossed on the desk further in, and his boots propped up on a coffee table that’s seen better days. Probably during a time when it had magazines on its surface and not spent Jet inhalers. It’s clear from the slow reaction and wide grin that Hancock bestows on them, that’s he’s high as Goddamn kite. 

Great.

Deacon returns Hancock’s grin, but it’s…off. The kid’s suddenly gotten squirrely. 

“These are some nice digs you got here, Hancock,” Deacon says, voice light, but Nick can hear the strain underlying it. Is that because he’s tired and weak, or something else entirely? “Way better than they were before. Raiders do not know how to decorate, right?”

“Nice to see you're still kickin’, brother. Nick.” Hancock dips his head slightly in Nick’s direction before turning back to Deacon. “Nothin’ worse than a bad trip.”

“I know! Try tellin’ that to Amari though, she doesn’t let anything slide. ‘Oh Deacon, you come in here in the middle of the night and shoot the lock off the door, something _must_ be wrong with you’.” The kid’s impression of the doctor is terrible, but Hancock starts laughing. There’s that lock thing again. 

“Must be,” Hancock agrees when his laughter has subsided. “Wasn’t sure my boys would get out alive if they tried to take you just then, you were lookin’ unhinged. Glad you said somethin’, for both our sakes.”

Deacon nods in acknowledgement. “And hey, if I insinuated in any way that you owed me some debt, forget about it. I didn’t help you for some sort of long-term gain-”

Hancock waves him off. “Don’t worry about it, brother, I know. You helped us, _me_ , ‘cause it was the right thing to do, but I do owe you. Might not have all this without ya.”

“Doubt that.”

“All the same, Deacon, you ever need anything, _anything_ , you just ask.”

“Cool.” The breezy way the kid says this belies the serious expression on his face. “Mind if I crash here for a few days? Need to recover from that bad trip before I can mosey on home.”

“You don’t even need to ask, brother. Think there’s a room downstairs, on the other side of the building, that ain’t occupied. You stickin’ around too, Nick?”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on him,” Nick replies with a smirk. 

“Lock your doors and hide your maidens, is it?” Deacon asks with a grin, but it’s not genuine. Nick can see the hard edges of it, and how it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

It’s strange, he didn’t use to be this good at picking out the kid’s lies (at first, not often; then, when he knew to look for them it was easier, but not like this). Nick’s not sure if he’s gained insight from their shared experience or if Deacon’s unable to perform at his usual high standards because of his current state. Maybe it’s a bit of both. 

Hancock starts laughing again.

“From what I’m hearin’,” Nick says, “a locked door don’t trouble you much at all.”

“No. They don’t,” Deacon replies with an easy confidence and Nick decides he doesn’t want to know the source of that confidence. Even after all this time, he’s still a cop at heart and finding out the kid could MacGyver his way into a vault wouldn’t be a source of comfort. 

They say their goodbyes to Hancock, and before Deacon can voice a complaint, Nick picks him back up again -much to the Mayor’s amusement. As they head out of the room and down the stairs, Fahrenheit’s voice drifts over to them from her position against the wall.

“Wish I had me a synth; that looks like the only way to travel.”

Deacon makes a gesture over Nick’s shoulder that he doesn’t catch, but it has the woman laughing. The kid’s got an amazing ability to makes friends with anyone; as long as you're worth making friends with. 

He’s quiet as they head to the back of the State House in search of the room Hancock mentioned. Nick assumes it’s because he’s tired, but as they find the empty room after two wrong guesses, Nick learns that even weakened and weary, the kid’s brain never stops turning. 

The room is small, perhaps it was an old office or storage space, with two beds in opposite corners and a small path between them. There’s an ancient potbelly stove on the outside wall, and a trunk shoved against the footboard of one bed. The other rooms they saw were about twice the size of this one, so Nick imagines that this room is the equivalent of the kid that is last picked for teams. It’s just fine for a short stay, though. 

Nick sets Deacon down in front of the bed closest to the stove (the room is chilly in its disuse, but there’s some scrap wood shoved in the feed door, and as long as Nick watches it, it’ll provide some nice heat). He sways slightly on his feet and Nick puts one hand on his arm to keep him steady. The kid’s wearing a battered flannel shirt and jeans, so he’ll probably want to get out them before he lies down, but first his boots. 

He directs Deacon to sit, and Nick kneels to unlace his boots. 

“Wow. Here’s a moment of strong déjà vu,” the kid says, a strange tone in his voice. “Now if I only had a hit of Med-X, this would be just like last time.”

Nick chuckles as he pulls one boot off and tucks it under the bed. “Probably better in your case if you didn’t.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Bad enough that you were rattlin’ around in my head, don’t need to spill any more secrets because I’m utterly fucked on Med-X.”

The kid’s tone causes Nick to pause in his unlacing of the other boot; it’s hurt and angry and cutting, and Nick should have guessed that they wouldn’t be able to just laugh the whole thing off. Deacon’s got a great sense of humour about everything but his secrets. Nick decides to just let the kid vent whatever he needs to, and goes back to unlacing the boot.

“Got nothin’ to say, Nick? Don’t have a million questions? No condemnations?”

Nick pulls the boot off and sets it beside its pair, then he sits on the other bed. “Got lots of questions, kid. Probably more now than ever, but I am not about to condemn anything without first hearing the whole story, and considerin’ your track record with the truth, I doubt I’ll be hearin’ that anytime soon.”

The kid sneers. “Oh yes, because it’s somehow my fault for not wanting to relive every bad memory just to sate your curiosity.”

Nick frowns. “There’s a difference between not wanting to talk about something because it bothers you and lyin’ about who you are with every damn breath because you're scared of the past.”

“Not the past, Nick. The future. The kind of future that I made in the Capital.”

“What did you do? Drop a bomb on the place? Because short of startin’ another Great War, I somehow doubt you’re the source of everything bad you _think_ has happened there.”

Deacon makes a noise of frustration. “I’m not sure if I’m angry that you don’t understand, or angry that you’re assumin’ I don’t know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“I _know_ you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, kid. Or the very least, you’ve blown the whole thing outta proportion. I’ve met the part of you that doesn’t believe any of the crap you’re sayin’, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Deacon asks, voice full of scorn. “But he’s not me, Nick. And I’m not him.”

“No? Then how come you were missin’ your heart when I found you? The heart he gave to me to give to you.”

The kid frowns and looks away. As ever, at odds with himself. 

They’re spared any further attempts at conversation when there’s a knock at the doorframe and Amari enters. Nick wonders how much she heard. She bustles in with her doctor’s bag in one hand and a mug full of something hot in the other. Amari hands the mug to Deacon, tells him to drink its contents slowly, and starts setting up a few things. 

Nick moves out of the way and decides to get a small fire in the stove going before he heads back to The Memory Den to collect their things. He pulls most of the scrap wood out of the feed door, and makes short work of starting a fire -thankfully his lighter was in his pant’s pocket and not in his coat with his cigarettes. Before he leaves, Nick asks Amari to watch the fire and make sure it doesn’t burn the building down because of a blocked chimney or something. He won’t be gone long, but it doesn’t take long for a fire to burn out of control.

In the street, there’s a sign for Goodneighbour’s postal service and it reminds Nick that he’ll have to send a message to Diamond City in the morning to apprise Ellie of the situation. It’s clear he’s going to be here longer than a day.

Back in The Memory Den, the place is quiet and Irma is gone from her usual perch. It’s probably long past closing time for those two, and Nick hurries downstairs to collect their gear so Amari can lock up when she returns. He throws on his own stuff first, then swings the kid’s backpack on, and grabs the rest.

He wonders why the kid has both a rifle and a bat. Something happen to his plasma pistol? And where’s his vest? Nick hates the idea that he’s been wandering the Commonwealth with so little protection. 

By the time he makes it back to Deacon, he’s undressed, tucked into bed, and Amari is just gathering her things to leave. Nick sets the kid’s stuff down on the trunk, and checks on the fire. As Amari heads to the door, she tells them that she’ll be back in a few hours to remove the IV line. 

She looks at Nick, “Please make sure he doesn’t remove the line while thrashing about in his sleep. Wake him if need be.”

Nick nods in understanding and then, she’s gone. An awkward silence settles over them. They didn’t get to finish their argument before Amari arrived and now it’s hanging over them like a coming radiation storm. 

As Nick settles himself on the other bed, the kid speaks. 

“She assumes that I will sleep. As if I want to return to that place so soon.”

“Think you will?”

The kid gives him a sardonic look. Whether it’s aimed at Nick or himself, he can’t be sure. Nick’s trying not to take anything personally right now. 

“Just because you shot Braun, doesn’t mean he isn’t still rattlin’ around in here.”

“Would he take you under again?” Nick asks, suddenly concerned.

Deacon shakes his head. “No, but you just scratched the surface of some really bad memories, and now the rest are too close to the surface for my comfort.”

Nick falls silent after that and the kid wiggles deeper under the covers of the bed, causing his flannel shirt to slide off the end and onto the floor. Deacon looks at for a moment, then lets his head fall onto the pillow, in a clear expression of _‘I’m not dealing with that tonight,’_.

Nick shifts on his bed to reach the fallen shirt, the springs creaking under his weight. “Can I ask you about somethin’ I saw?”

The kid shrugs, but doesn’t look at him. It’s a confirmation he’ll listen, but no guarantee he’ll answer. Nick asks anyways.

“There was this corridor of bodies-” Deacon flinches at its mention and Nick considers abandoning his question. Maybe the kid’s right, maybe the only thing he does care about is sating his own curiosity. “Look, never mind.”

“Out with it, Nick. You’ve already started and I’m sure these next few days are going to be full of uncomfortable questions. Consider this your one and only opportunity to hear the truth, because after this…” the kid trails off, but Nick doesn’t need to hear Deacon say he’s leaving to know it’s true. 

Nick sighs. He doesn’t want the kid to go. Not again.

“There was a woman in that place, and she was laid out differently than the rest. Almost like you took the time to arrange her.”

“Amata,” Deacon agrees, voice brittle.

Amata. There was a place with her name on it in Megaton.

“She meant something special to you.”

“She used to mean _everything_ to me.” There a long pause as the kid watches the flames dance through the grate on the pot belly stove. “These days, she’s just a terrible reminder that I get the people I love killed.”

The kid rolls over in bed, careful to keep his IV line from getting tangled, and that’s the end of that discussion. Nick sighs, heartbroken and heartsick for Deacon. He wishes there was something he could do to ease his pain and guilt. 

When Amari arrives again (several hours later, looking tired and freshly out of bed, carrying an armful of purified water cans), Deacon is completely out of it. He hasn’t moved one inch from where he rolled over to and Nick hopes that the only thing he’s dreaming of is a good night’s rest. 

Nick sets down the _Unstoppables_ magazine he swiped from Hancock’s room and takes the cans from her so she can remove the IV line. When she’s finished, Nick tells her to go and to not come back until she’s well-rested. He can manage making the kid drink water and rustle him up some breakfast while she recoups. She gives him a small smile of thanks and heads out, leaving Nick to return to his story. 

As he tries to find his place again, Nick comes to the conclusion that he has no idea what this comic book’s story is about. He’s been flipping the pages mechanically as he thought about what he saw and experienced while in Deacon’s head, and being genuinely worried that the kid will wake up in the morning and it’ll be Braun staring at him through Deacon’s eyes. 

Nick sighs and sets the magazine aside as he tries and recall where he heard or read about ‘The Lone Wanderer’. Something tells him that whoever that moniker is, it’s the crux of the kid’s whole self-loathing psyche. 

And Nick thought he had issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full quote from Tolstoy's _'War and Peace'_ about power: “What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the wills of the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.”
> 
> At the end, Deacon and Nick quote bits and piece of the song _'The Maladjusted Jester'_ sung by Danny Kaye. It's really quite funny, and I suggest you Youtube it for a laugh. Actually, the whole movie is funny. 
> 
> So, I’ve decided to end this fic with the destruction of The Switchboard and start a new story for the FO4 storyline. By then, I’m guessing this story will be around 250,000 words (which is crazy. I’ve never written anything this long before) and that’s enough. More than enough for one story. We’re not quite at the end yet, still things to tie up with Ticon and the Railroad after the whole Deathclaw thing, but I’m thinking five chapters left at the max.
> 
> Thus, you might have noticed that I created a series for this fic. If you have an account, please feel free to bookmark, subscribe, or both, to it for the next installment. If you don’t have an account, the next part will be called ‘A Copy of ‘War and Peace’ and a Dump Truck Full of Caps’, so watch for that after the end of this one. 
> 
> And then, _after_ that one, will be the Far Harbour sequel. I think I’ve come up with an awesome story to weave into the whole DiMA/Nick thing, and the Children of Atom and Far Harbour people parts, so I’m really stoked to get there. But first things first. :D
> 
> Lastly, like an utter tool, I completely forgot to post a link to lackia's [awesome fanart](http://noneedforsuspicion.tumblr.com/post/147217342698/heres-rhett-deacon-from-insert-something) of Deacon a.k.a. Rhett, circa Diamond City stakeout, last chapter. He even has his bomber jacket and Anchorage haircut!


	16. That's How I Got to Memphis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _CASSIUS: …A friend should bear a friend’s infirmities,_   
>  _but Brutus makes mine greater than they are._
> 
> _BRUTUS: I do not, ‘till you practice them on me._
> 
> _CASSIUS: You love me not._
> 
> _BRUTUS: I do not like your faults._
> 
> _CASSIUS: A friendly eye could never see such faults._
> 
> _BRUTUS: A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear  
>  as huge as high Olympus._
> 
> _-Julius Caesar (4.3.86)_

There’s the steady ebb and flow of water next to Deacon’s ear, as though it were shifting through pipes. As he hovers in that place between wakefulness and sleep, Deacon believes himself to be back home. It almost sounds like early morning in the vault, around the time when people were calling on water to run showers, sinks, and toilets. Deacon would lay pressed against the metal wall basking in the last few moments of warmth and sleep right before James would burst into the room and tell him he had about ten minutes until morning class. 

His dad would usually add: “Remind me why I agreed to let you move into one of the unoccupied suits again?” as he watched with amusement as Deacon bolted out of bed and frantically scrounged for a clean suit.

The memory is bittersweet as Deacon slides more fully into consciousness and acknowledges that being back home is an impossibility. He blearily opens his eyes against the light streaming in the room’s one dirty window to check his surroundings and finds that his movement is restricted by a heavy weight draped across his chest and one of his legs. There’s a brief moment of panic as the day’s previous events rush back, and he’s worried that Braun has devised some fresh fell for him. 

It’s quelled by Nick’s low voice.

“Easy kid,” he says, “It’s just me.”

A different sort of panic sets in and Deacon freezes as he realizes that the weight is Nick’s limbs and the sound of water is actually his coolant pumping around his fusion core. It sounds like it is right next to his ear because his face is buried in Nick’s chest; somehow, Nick has gone from using the other bed to sharing this one with him.

“Uh…what are you doin’ in my bed, Nick?” Deacon asks voice rough with sleep and extra scratchy this morning from disuse. He sounds like he has a two-pack-a-day habit. Lovely.

“You started havin’ this really bad nightmare after Amari took your IV line out, but my presence calmed you. Suppose I could’ve kneeled on the floor all night holdin’ your hand, but I wasn’t sure it was gonna be enough.” Nick shrugs slightly as if to say _‘Deal with it, kid’_ and Deacon can feel the motion of shoulders moving up and down.

“…Thanks, I guess.”

“Is that for everything or just this?”

Deacon thinks for a moment. “All of it, I suppose.”

“You rather I didn’t come for you?” he asks in response to Deacon’s two previous caveats. 

There’s a sadness in Nick’s voice that nearly makes Deacon lie to reassure him, but after the last few months, Deacon’s had about enough that. When he returns to HQ, he’ll have to pick it up again, but for right now he can give lying a rest. 

“I…don’t know.”

“Are things so bad that you want to die instead of stickin’ around?”

Deacon sighs, glad he can’t see the look on Nick’s face. “I lost everyone I ever loved, Nick. My dad, my girl, my family; is it any wonder that I sometimes think it would be easier to join them than continue on alone?” 

There’s silence from Nick, and he amends his statement so he doesn’t come off as suicidal because he’s not really. More like, mildly tired of life. 

“Look, I’m not gonna to jump off a building or anything -not that you could get me up there, but I tend to get into life or death situations on a pretty regular basis, and sometimes I think: ‘Would it be so bad if I didn’t get out of this alive?’.”

“Not makin’ me feel better about the whole situation, kid.”

Now it’s Deacon’s turn to shrug. “Just tryin’ to be honest. I coulda lied and said it was all Braun’s idea.”

“Don’t think I woulda believed you.”

“Even though you said those very words?” Deacon asks in mild amusement.

“I’da said anythin’ to get you out of there with me, Jack.”

Deacon stiffens and tries to pull back, but Nick won’t let him out of his clutches. _Damnit._

“Don’t _ever_ say that name again,” Deacon snaps. “There’s a reason I don’t go by that anymore.”

“What reason is that?” Nick asks, curious, and it makes Deacon angry. He could handle Nick snapping at him, but he’s being all reasonable and Deacon doesn’t know how to deal with that. 

“There’s a myriad of them, but mostly it’s none of your business. If I wanted people to know what my name was, I’d give it out at group meetings and town cook-outs.”

“You gave it to me,” Nick points out, far too calm and logical about everything.

“No, I didn’t. He did.”

“Kid, he is you. Just because you don’t want to believe it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

Deacon pulls back, trying to get some space between them. “Says the synth who doesn’t believe he’s himself.”

Nick frowns. “At least I’m makin’ an effort to stop thinkin’ like that. Can’t say the same of you.”

“That’s because I’m tryin’ to be someone else. My life Nick, I’ll do with it what I want.”

“What? Live alone and apart from people because you won’t let them in, and then consider not makin’ a damn effort to stay alive _because_ you’re alone? Don’t you see how ridiculous that is?!”

_See?_ The Lone Wanderer says, with no little smugness, _You’re being daft again._

Deacon plants his hands on Nick’s check and shoves. He’s angry that Nick is still relatively calm about this whole thing and angry that he’s making points The Lone Wanderer agrees with. He must catch Nick slightly off guard because he teeters on the edge of the bed before he has to move his hand and brace himself on the other bed so he doesn’t hit the floor. 

Deacon takes the opportunity to sit up and tuck himself into the corner of the bed, legs drawn up to force Nick to keep his damn distance. 

He expects Nick to get angry and let their conversation devolve into a fight, but all Nick does is sigh and right himself. He grabs a can of purified water, tosses it at Deacon, and tells him to drink it all before he gets back. Then he shoves his feet in his shoes, slides into his gear, grabs his gun from the small nightstand between the two beds, and is gone. Leaving Deacon feeling like a heel for trying to provoke a fight.

When Nick returns again with some food, he’s dutifully finished the can of purified water and swiped the _Unstoppables_ comic from the other bed. He’s not a big fan of these joint mission books because Grognak and Manta Man annoy him, but it’ll do in a pinch. As Nick hands him the Styrofoam container, Deacon sets the comic aside and holds up the can of water with a shake to prove that it’s empty. 

With the container in hand, Deacon idly wonders how many of these things are left in the world, brand new, still in their plastic bags, and stacked to high heaven. It almost seems like they were ‘Prepared for the future!’ as it were. 

He shakes off the odd train of thought. 

Nick sits on the edge of Deacon’s bed after tossing his coat and hat on the one; he leaves his shoulder holster on, however; he’s not quite as comfortable here as he is in Diamond City -Nick doesn’t keep his gun within arms reach at the agency. Not that Deacon blames him; he wishes he had his plasma pistol. It’s much easier to conceal than his rifle or bat. Hopefully, he won’t have to spend too much longer in Goodneighbour because he needs to get back to Ticonderoga. 

Like yesterday.

Deacon opens the food container and finds scrambled eggs and toast. It’s hard to make mirelurk eggs taste like something other than slowly rotting seafood, but the food stand that specializes in mirelurk in town has got it down to a science. Much better than the eggs they served at the Deathclaw camp, but not as good as actual deathclaw eggs. Shame they are so hard to get. Deacon gives Nick a nod of thanks. 

“Got a few weird looks buyin’ food,” Nick says with a smirk.

“They probably wondered who the lucky lady was,” Deacon says before he can clamp down on the comment. He frowns in annoyance at himself (mixed messages much?) and focuses on his food. He wasn’t all that hungry until he opened the container and the spicy scent of the eggs hit him.

“Ya think?” Nick asks all innocence. “Figured they’d already knew, seein’ as how I carried you across town.”

Deacon chokes slightly on a bite of scrambled egg. He hadn’t thought of that. Christ, could he get any more of a liability to The Railroad? All he seems to do is wander through town, as brazen as you please, all the while telling more and more people he’s a member of The Railroad.

Rumours fly fast in a small town, and this is exactly the kind of thing that brings a Courser down on a place. All The Institute needs, is the rumour of a safehouse and they will crush this town. He’d have been better off in Rexford, instead of letting every member of the Watch know what he looks like now by asking Hancock for a room. 

He can’t stay here now. He needs to go. If something happens to Goodneighbour or Amari because some drifter with a grudge gets wind of a Railroad agent in town, or (God forbid) The Institute is watching the town and notes that a fair few agents roll through here, he’ll never forgive himself.

_So, just par for the course, then,_ The Lone Wanderer notes, but there is a sense of agreement within himself; though, it comes with the caveat of ‘for now’. The Wanderer doesn’t like to run from things, Institute included.

“What’s the matter, kid?” Nick asks, peering at him with concern. “Your mood just got dark.”

Deacon opens his mouth to answer, not sure what to say. Nick will undoubtedly, wholeheartedly, disagree with Deacon leaving Goodneighbour right now. He’s saved from answering by the light rapping on the frame of the door. They both glance over, but Deacon’s eyes first light on Nick and the way he angles slightly for his gun.

Not that little, old, Magnolia would do them much harm; even wearing such a smile.

She’s dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans, a heavy sweater to protect against the cold of March, and her face is clean of makeup. She looks oddly out of place in such casual wear; he’s never seen her in anything but fancy dresses and a dressing gown.

“Hey, sugar,” she says, by way of greeting, “a high, little birdie told me you were crashing here. Thought I’d come by and see how you are.”

Deacon gives her a faint, but reassuring smile as she saunters into the small room and takes up residence on the other bed, neatly crossing her legs as though she were in a dress and not in jeans. 

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Nick says, relaxing slight and holding out a hand, “Nick Valentine.”

She grasps his hand, firmly, and seems to take no note that it’s his skeletal one. Perhaps Magnolia was prepared for the sight; Deacon did talk an awful lot about Nick that night she coaxed him back to her room. 

“Everyone in town knows who you are, detective. I’m Magnolia; you might have seen me singin’ at The Third Rail.”

Nick nods. “A few times, not sure I ever caught your name, though. Not much for me in a place like that.”

“What? Don’t you like music and sharing a table with a friend?”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Magnolia leans forward and lets the fingertips of one hand rest lightly on Nick’s knee. She’s beautiful, even dressed down as she is, and she knows it. “It’s better that you don’t drink the swill Charlie serves, sugar. That stuff’ll rot your insides.”

Nick looks at her in slight bemusement. “So I hear.”

From over Nick’s shoulder, Magnolia gives Deacon a look. One that seems to playfully ask if he’s a little uncomfortable with her being this…forward with Nick. Deacon shrugs his shoulders and tries to put on an unaffected air. He’s pretty much the opposite, though. He knows Magnolia means no harm, and that’s she’s only doing it to elicit a reaction from him.

She’s made it her mission to see him happy in repayment for him helping her, and somehow that involves _involving_ Nick. This is what happens when you let people know things about you; they try and use it to make you happy. How annoying.

“How are things with your band of misfits, sugar?” Magnolia asks him, leaning away from Nick.

“Could be better; could be worse,” Deacon replies with a shrug. Magnolia knows his ups and downs with The Railroad and so does Nick to an extent, but he’d rather avoid talking about his latest mission if at all possible. 

Both of them look at Deacon and he can clearly read in their gazes that despite what he said, they know that things are worse with The Railroad. Magnolia’s face shifts into a slight, but sad frown, and Nick’s gets angry. 

“Still treatin’ you like their most useful pariah?” Nick asks, disdain clear in his voice. 

Deacon shakes his head. “It’s not like that, well not quite. Though, I think I’m done with undercover work for awhile.”

“That wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with you shootin’ the lock off The Memory Den, now would it?” Magnolia asks with a small grin, trying to lighten the mood. It seems like a funny story until you know why he did that. 

Nick raises an eyebrow. “I was wonderin’ what that was all about. Gonna tell the story, kid, or is that an inside secret between you and this town?”

“I was angry, in a hurry, and the door was locked. What else is there to tell?”

“Like maybe why you were angry and in a hurry?”

Deacon picks at the remains of his breakfast, hesitant to talk. 

“Kid?”

“It…it was the night Tom died,” Deacon says, voice barely above a whisper. “I needed a runner sent to University Point and I didn’t have the time or the patience to wait for someone to come to the door.”

Nick goes still and Magnolia quietly sighs. This was obviously not what she had in mind when she brought the subject up. 

“What were you doin’ in Diamond City that night?” Nick asks, voice strained and sad. 

“…It’s a kinda long and unpleasant story, and I-” Deacon cuts himself off. His throat is suddenly tight and swears if he has to utter one more word he’ll burst into very unmanly tears. He looks down at where his hands are wrapped around the food container. 

There’s the sudden sound of the room’s door being closed and then the bed dips as Magnolia climbs on it. He looks up as she takes what’s left of his breakfast and sets it aside. Then, she grabs Nick by a fistful of his shirt and drags him up with her as she slides into place beside Deacon. Nick takes his other side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as Magnolia takes one of his hands in hers. 

“You tell us as much or as little as you like, sweetheart,” Magnolia says, voice low and warm. “We’ll be here, regardless.”

“Always,” Nick agrees and it sounds just the way it did when that other piece of himself gave Nick that stupid fabric heart: like a promise. 

That cracks the thin layer of protection that Deacon has tried to craft for himself since emerging from the Memory Lounger, and he starts crying. Slowly at first, but increasing in intensity until it feels like a vice is around his chest and his tears are like acid on his face. 

Last time he cried like this it was with Moira in the sun-scorched bedroom of his Megaton house. 

It was after he had come to the stark and horrible realization that he had just spent the last several months methodically _murdering_ a group of people without knowing precisely who was to blame for the death of Amata and his vault. He had been horrible to the town for two days while he tried to come to grips with that fact that he was a monster no better than any raider, and that day he just lay in bed contemplating wandering into the Wastes with the explicit intention to die. 

Moira appeared in the room’s doorway; called by what, he didn’t know. Still doesn’t. Maybe Wadsworth had observed his depressed physical state and informed her that he needed help, maybe she had come to chastise him for being a massive asshole, or perhaps she could just sense his distress the way that close friends could and came to ease his suffering.

That was all she ever did. 

Granted, some of that suffering was suffering that she asked him to inflict on himself for the sake of their book, but Moira is the only reason he ever made in the Wastes. She’s the reason he survived long enough to do all the things he did, and though Deacon regrets many of those things, he will never regret her kindness. 

His father taught him to shoot, but Moira taught him to _survive._ And that day she appeared in his doorway when he needed her comfort the most (the comfort of the only person left alive that loved him), Moira silently shed her boots and her grease-stained RobCo jumpsuit, crawled into his bed, wrapped herself around him, and murmured softly in his ear. She, once again, showed him how to survive.

Christ, he missed her so much.

“Who, kid?” Nick asks, voice low. He didn’t realize he’d said that aloud.

He grips Magnolia’s hand tighter, a fresh wave of tears coming over him, but it isn’t right. Her hand isn’t rough and calloused and she doesn’t smell like Wonder Glue and paint thinner. 

“…Moira.”

Nick settles in closer, brushing some of Deacon’s wild hair back from his face. He had it cut into a style in Quincy, but three days without washing has turned it into an unruly mess.

“Figured she meant somethin’ important if part of you masqueraded as her and you kept her book as a keepsake.”

“Our book,” Deacon corrects, voice thick with tears.

“Tell me about her.”

Deacon closes his eyes. Where to even begin? 

Beside him, Magnolia is quiet, but her presence is a comfort, though he hesitates to speak with her in the room. It must be palpable because after a moment she speaks. 

“I’ll go if you want, sugar. I know there are some things you don’t want to talk about with me.” There’s no accusation in her voice, just understanding.

Deacon is silent in his indecision. He doesn’t want her to leave, but at the same time, he’s afraid of what might slip out in his current distress. He knows she won’t say anything, but he’s not sure how to handle others knowing who he is under all his masks anymore. It’s been _so long._ Ellie was right; he doesn’t trust himself. 

Magnolia starts to move and tries to extract her hand from his, taking his silence as confirmation that he wants her to go, but Deacon clamps down on her hand refusing to let her leave. Nick and Magnolia are the only two people in the Commonwealth who have any idea who he really is, and just for now, just for today, he’s going to be selfish about this. Soon enough he’ll return to The Railroad and have to be funny, charming, witty, _lying_ Deacon.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, scrubs the tears from his face with his free hand, and then uses it to direct Nick’s free arm around his waist. Nick was too close before, and now he’s not close enough -Deacon wishes he could come to an agreement about what he wants and what he deserves. 

“I didn’t leave my vault on the best of terms,” Deacon begins, voice shaky and wet. “and I was wholly unprepared for the Wastes when I did. The only things I had with me were a 10mm pistol with 5 rounds, a ball cap I got for my 10th birthday, my Pipboy, and the need to find a dad who had left what is the parental equivalent of a lipstick note on the mirror: a holotape.”

“Jesus, kid,” Nick says with an angry sigh. 

“We should all be so lucky, hmm?” Deacon replies with a bitter note. “Megaton was about a two-hour walk from my vault and those first two hours were hell. I thought it was bad tryin’ to escape from the crazed people in my vault, but wandering in that irradiated hellhole, with injuries from my escape, and absolutely no idea about _anything_ out there, was so much worse. It suddenly dawned on me that I was going to die in that place and that it wouldn’t necessarily be from radiation.

“When I got to Megaton I was scared, thirsty, grief-stricken, and in shock. I wandered in a daze from shop to shop, asking if anyone had seen my dad, but everyone said no. I thought to myself: How could you not have seen him? He’s wearing a vault suit, just like mine; he should’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. Later, I realize that no one said anythin’ because they didn’t want to get on Moriarty’s bad side. Lucas liked to say he was the law and the mayor, but no one had more power in town than that slave-ownin’ sonuvabitch.

“I finally stumbled into a shop called Crater Side Supply -it was marked Vault 112 in the Lounger.” Deacon mentions this for Nick’s benefit, and Nick tights his arms around Deacon. His mind put all the worst memories under her banner because he believed that somehow, even in her absence, she would help him survive. “There was no one in sight, and I was so tired and sad that I just wanted to find some dark hole to cry in, so I turned to go. Then, Moira just popped up from behind the counter like some Goddamned jack-in-a-box with a bright grin and welcomed me into her shop. 

“The words about my dad were rote by then, but I didn’t even have them out of my mouth before she was around the counter and dragging me further into her shop. She sat me down at her work table and bustled around for some purified water as she told me that my dad had been and gone. He’d come in for supplies and left the town about an hour before I arrived. I wanted to leave right away, but she made me stay and drink my water while she looked at my injuries.

“I had a split lip, black eye, a fractured rib, and a concussion from brawling with Officer Mack. I have no idea how I managed to get the upper hand and shoot him; rage maybe, because it certainly wasn’t skill. Moira wiped the blood away, gave me a stim, and all the while she just chattered away. I have no idea what she said, but her cheerful voice was like a balm to all my grief and fear. She made me eat something to help with the stim, as I told her I’d never had one.” Deacon gives a harsh wheeze of a laugh. “These days I can take two stims like a pro, pick up my knife or pistol and kill someone without missin’ a beat, but then I was just some soft, scrap of a kid who had just killed his first man a few scant hours before and was utterly sick about it.”

Magnolia’s grip tightens on his hand and she starts running a thumb over his knuckles. He hadn’t meant to tell this much of the story, but to understand how much Moira means to him, he has to make it clear that he was nothing like he is now and that she’s the only reason he’s still alive.

“First time’s tough,” Nick agrees, sadly. “Get’s easier, though, unfortunately.”

“Killin’, yeah. Guilt over takin’ a life, though? That never goes away.”

“As well it shouldn’t,” Magnolia whispers. 

Deacon nods and sinks lower in the bed. There’s mutual adjustment on both sides of him and Deacon waits for them to get settled before continuing. Though, now that he’s stopped talking it’s hard to start again and it takes a moment to swallow away the tightness in his throat.

“I stayed a week at Moira’s house, even though I knew after that first day where my dad had gone. I managed to hack into Moriarty’s computer,” Deacon says this with a slight smirk. “Every day I was there, I told myself that this would be the day I was gonna leave and head out into the Wastes, and everyday Moira showed me something else I needed to know about survival. 

“She taught me about which animals to eat, which to avoid. She showed me how to use a knife to gut an animal -though she cried the whole time; she thinks mole rats are cute.” Deacon gives a watery laugh. “She showed me where to get pre-war food from, how to cook it. Where to find purified water, how to handle drinking irradiated water, and to watch my radiation levels. She taught me the best place to use stims and how to find a vein for Rad-Away; how long Rad-X lasted and long it took to take effect. She explained that bottlecaps were currency and that I needed to haggle for _everything._ That nothing was useless or junk; someone had a use for everything and it was just a matter of finding the right buyer. She taught me how to keep weapons and armour in good repair, and how to modify them. Though, I never really caught on to the armour bits. 

“My dad may have taught me how to shoot, but Moira taught me how to _survive._ She never asked for anything in return for these lessons. Not single cap or piece of scrap.” Deacon’s voice is tight again, reliving these memories. 

He never told Moira he was leaving the Capital; never said goodbye. He couldn’t find the courage to stand before her and admit that he was weak and, that despite all her help, he was unable to stay and attempt to fix the problems he’d caused. 

“Then one day, she asked for help putting together a Wasteland survival guide. Apparently, teaching me to survive had given her an idea; a cause.” Deacon shakes his head in fond remembrance of the eager way she described her idea. “Don’t know how I lived long enough to make it Megaton that first time. Lucky, I guess. Or maybe some stranger was watchin’ over me. Who knows?-” Nick suddenly goes still with a low intake of breath.“-But every time after that I made it back in one piece, was because of her.”

Deacon turns slightly to peer at Nick and Nick looks at him like he's suddenly made a break in a case. Deacon frowns and turns away; he’s given away too much.

After a moment of silence, Deacon says, “Hey, could I get another can of purified water? Feelin’ a bit like I just undid all of Amari’s hard work over here.”

Magnolia lets go of his hand with a pat and shifts off the bed. Nick points to the trunk, telling her he stashed the cans in it, and Deacon takes the opportunity to move to the end of the bed himself. Muttering something along the lines of: “Need solid ground beneath my feet, been lyin’ down too long.” Nick lets him go after a moment of hesitation. 

Deacon sits on the edge of the bed, planting his bare feet on the cold floor with a bit of a flinch. He’s suddenly cold without their presence at his sides. He gratefully takes the can from Magnolia as she settles herself on the other bed and greedily drinks its contents. His head is pounding from crying and he still feels weak, but more determined than ever to leave. Really, he shouldn’t have said anything about Moira because now Nick knows more than ever and he’s not in the least bit comfortable with that.

_Don’t turn on him, you emotionally stunned asshole,_ The Lone Wanderer snarls at him. _It’s not his fault that you’re not comfortable with you._

_I’m not comfortable with **you,**_ Deacon snaps right back. _Big difference._

_I am you, you idiot._

“I need to leave Goodneighbour,” Deacon says, suddenly and more harshly than he intended. “I gotta get back.”

Magnolia raises one of her perfectly shaped brows but doesn’t say anything. 

“Sure,” Nick replies from his position behind Deacon, “Amari will probably clear you in a couple days.”

Deacon starts shaking his head before Nick can even finish his sentence and he can almost feel Nick’s mood darken.

“No. Now. Today.”

“ _Kid-_ ”

Magnolia holds up a hand and Nick falls quiet. She seems to sense the discord between them.

“You’re not well enough for that, Deacon,” she says. “It’s plain to see you’ve lost a good deal of weight since I saw you last, and you spent the last two days without food or water. You need to recuperate, sweetheart. A journey of any significant distance could kill you.”

_Good,_ he thinks rather viciously, but says: “So could a Courser, and the longer I’m here, the greater chance one descends on the town.”

Magnolia’s eyes widen a fraction in fear, but Nick snorts.

“I can’t quite remember when I heard such a load of bull, kid, but I can be sure that it came from you.”

“Fuck you, Nick,” Deacon snarls, twisting to look at him where he’s lounging against the wall. “You think that just because you wandered through a safehouse with me, went on one spectacularly fucked up run, that you have _any_ idea the kind of danger that comes with runnin’ with The Railroad? Do you have any idea what kind of pressure is put on Goodneighbour because we can’t go into Diamond City? How carefully runs are planned out so synths can go and see Amari without overlappin’ each other?” Deacon stands, legs steadying under him in his rapidly rising anger. “I have on four separate occasions, stupidly, let my presences be known here as a Railroad agent-”

Nick interrupts sharply. “You don’t wear the same face. No one’ll know it was you.”

Deacon runs his hand through his hair in frustration. If he only had room to pace. “That’s just it, Nick. Seemingly four different agents have passed through here on intimate terms with the town, on top of all the other agents that shuffle through here. Do you honestly think The Institute isn’t watchin’ this place? They’d be fools not to, and they are anythin’ but. How long before some drifter or Watch member or raider asshole with a grudge talks too loudly about how fuckin’ cozy The Railroad is in town and The Institute rains synthetic hell down on this place?”

“They’d destroy a whole town for you?” Nick’s tone is full of disbelief.

“If they knew who I was, yeah, they might,” Deacon says, thinking of Zimmer and his ‘Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha’ tag. “but the only reason they need to destroy this place is the merest hint that Goodneighbour is important to The Railroad. They destroyed University Point for one fuckin’ holotape, they’d gladly destroy Goodneighbour if they thought it would hurt us.”

Nick sits up on the bed. “What do you mean they destroyed University Point?”

Magnolia covers her mouth with one hand, “Oh my God, that was _them?_ ”

“Yeah,” Deacon replies, anger deflating slightly. “Walked through the ruins myself. I think they went in the day after we wiped out The Deathclaws; the town was easy pickin’s then. Not that what they wanted was there anymore.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Nick says, shifting forward on the bed. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? University Point destroyed by The Institute? You destroying The Deathclaws? What the hell have you been up to?”

“I thought you had that figured out by now, Nick. ‘Specially seein’ as how you figured out that other thing. I infiltrated The Deathclaws for The Railroad, ran with them for the last half a year.”

“ _That’s_ why you were in Diamond City?” Nick asks, face warring between surprise, disgust, and anger. 

“What? Thought I wanted to see you?” Deacon replies nastily, wanting to drag Nick down into the same dark place he can’t seem to get out of. It’s needlessly cruel, but in that moment, Deacon doesn’t care.

Nick shoots to his feet. “What the hell is your problem, kid? You think you’re the only one out here who has to deal with guilt or death?” He snorts. “You think you're so damn special that the world just lives or dies on your actions? Or that anyone out here cares who you are or what you’ve done? Get over yourself, Jack.”

Deacon redlines on the utterance of his name a second time. He told Nick not to use it; to never say it again. He lashes out -Corvega speaking in his head about where not to punch someone if you wanted to walk away without a broken hand. He lands a solid punch on the ragged area of Nick’s neck, knuckles first and weight twisted into it. 

Magnolia gasps.

Nick stumbles backward with the force of it, Deacon has clearly taken him by surprise -he doesn’t imagine under normal circumstances being able to put Nick down that easily. The back of his legs hit the small nightstand between the two beds and Nick sits harshly down on it, knocking the oil lamp onto the floor, where it breaks. Thankfully, it wasn’t lit.

“Don’t ever call me that again,” Deacon snarls. 

Nick glares at him, truly angry now. He springs from the nightstand and has Deacon’s t-shirt fisted and him lifted up until his toes barely touch the floor faster than any human could possible move. 

“Or what?” Nick growls. “You’ll leave and never come back? Disappear into the Wastes like some Western anti-hero as the fuckin’ sun sets? Good. _Go._ I’m tired of waitin’ for you to get your shit together, anyways.”

Nick tosses him on the bed like some discarded jacket, collects his things, and stomps out of the room. 

Deacon stares at the now open door horrified that Nick left, sick that he said those awful things, and ashamed that he utterly lost it and hit Nick. All those things only manage to fuel the fire of his anger. If the lantern wasn’t already broken he’d throw it against the wall. He wants to scream and rant and break every fucking thing within his sight, but somehow he manages to clamp down on it all and tries to breathe.

Magnolia is sitting silently on the other bed and after a moment Deacon chances a look at her. There’s nothing but empathy in her gaze, but he would much rather she hate him as much as he hates himself right now. 

“Please leave,” he says, voice tight.

“Alright.” She stands and heads for the door. “Don’t do anything stupid, sugar.”

Or what? He almost blurts out but manages to bite his tongue. Why couldn’t he do that with Nick?

He sits on the bed, his shirt still rumpled and rucked up around his chest, and wonders why there isn’t a Watch member standing at the door, telling him to keep it down. It’s about the only thought he’ll allow himself right now. After a moment, he pulls down his t-shirt and stands. There’s no telling when Amari might appear to fuss over him and he can’t be sure that Magnolia isn’t on her way there right now. 

Deacon feels his anger lower to a simmer as he focuses on a plan of action. Namely, to gather all his things a quickly as possible and leave. The normal half a day's walk to Ticon will probably take him two, but that’ll just give him time to get his mask firmly back into place. As long as he’s got water, food, and bullets, he’ll be fine. Walked further distances in worse shape, after all.

He finds some relatively clean clothing to throw on, shoves his makeshift pajamas and yesterday’s clothing into his pack, and fills his pockets with .44 rounds. Then, he checks his supply of rations and finds it appallingly low. Swearing, he shoves the leather pouch back in the front pocket of his backpack, knowing he’ll have to stop and get supplies. He packs all the remaining cans of purified water and tests the weight of the pack with the baseball bat tucked in and sticking out the top. It’s heavier than he would like, especially considering his current condition, but as time goes on it’ll get lighter.

Deacon swing his jacket on, pulls his sunglasses from the inside pocket, and hauls the pack onto his shoulders. Then grabs his rifle, and leaves the Old State House.

His toque is in his jacket pocket and he finds it as he’s fishing for some caps. He tugs it on, though the weather isn’t quite cold enough for it anymore, because it’ll hide his distinctive hair and stops at a food stand to buy some more dry rations. As he’s heading down the narrow street between the Old State House and The Alley, Deacon sees the door to the state house open and Amari lean out. He tucks himself into the mouth of The Alley and waits for her to give up looking on this side of town. 

It takes several long moments before she returns to the interior of the building, but soon enough Deacon is able to head to the town’s exit at a brisk pace -one he won’t be able to keep up on the road. The two Watch members on guard duty at the exit give him nods as he goes by, and Deacon tips his head in response. Everyone remembers that rude asshole who couldn’t wave or nod or be a decent human being, but politeness just fades into the background.

Outside Goodneighbour’s walls, Deacon lets out a sigh of relief. On the breath in, he catches the scent of cigarette smoke. That’s the only warning he gets before a strong hand is wrapping itself around his upper arm and Nick is bodily dragging him along. _Away_ from the door.

He’s utterly relieved to see the man. 

“It occurred to me, on the way out of town, that I just spent six hours traipsin’ through your head in an effort to save your Goddamned life, and while you clearly don’t value you it, I value my time,” Nick says, voice rough and holding a sharp undercurrent of anger. “So if you’re gonna die out here, kid, it sure as hell won’t be because I was too angry to see you someplace safe.”

Deacon flinches at the harsh words, but this time, wisely, keeps his peace.

\- - - - -

With Nick’s help, Deacon makes much better time to Ticonderoga. He thinks they may actually get to the safehouse before sundown. Nick carries his bag and walks close so he can catch Deacon when he stumbles over rubble or divots in the street. They don’t talk save for Deacon saying a few words to get Nick to stop so he can rest, drink some water, and stave off the building nausea. 

They stop for lunch in an old outdoor patio for a restaurant somewhere between the Mass Fusion building and the bridge that will take them over the Charles River. Deacon wearily sinks into the chair and pulls his toque off his head, feeling too hot all of a sudden. Nick presses a can of water silently into his hands. He drinks half of it in long gulps, but it settles queasily in his stomach and he pushes the rest away. Nick offers him his ration pouch and the sight of his turns his stomach, so he shakes his head. Nick’s eyes narrow as he stares at Deacon.

His skin is clammy, he’s hot, nauseated, and wobbly. He’s gone from his body trying to heal itself to trying to kill itself, all because he wouldn’t listen to his doctor. Though to be fair, he never did listen to any doctor, but his father. 

Wait? Who’s that fair to?

Nick’s hand closes over his wrist. “Kid?”

Blearily, he looks up at Nick. “I’m gonna be sick,” he says right before he actually is. 

He lurches in his chair and is only kept upright and out of his own vomit by the grasp Nick has on his wrist. 

//

The next thing he knows, Deacon is being jolted along in Nick's arms as he jogs down the street. He must have fainted. The only other thought that manages to make it to the surface in his muddled mind is that it's imperative that he not go back to  
Goodneighbour. 

He must have said as much aloud because Nick answers with a sharp:

“Shut up.”

But Deacon squirms in an effort to be heard so Nick adds:

“We're not going back there, kid. Ticon is closer.”

That assuages him enough that unconsciousness claims him again. 

//

He next surfaces as Nick barks out their current sign. 

“That, Dee?” Uncle asks, voice worried, and Deacon turns his head to give Uncle a grin. He might have even waved if he had the strength to throw off the dead weights that seem to be holding his arms down.

“Yes,” Nick replies as he trots up the stairs into Ticon. 

The world is strange and fuzzy around the edges, and he feels like he's going to be sick again. 

He thinks he mentions this to Nick, but maybe not because he's seemingly ignored. 

“Maybe you should...” Uncles makes a gesture like the tipping of a coffee pot

“He's got nothing left,” Nick says as they step into the elevator.

_Oh,_ Deacon thinks, as he slides under again, _maybe I’m not that sick after all._

//

He wakes to a nightmare.

He's in the vault clinic again and Jonas is strapped down to the gurney -he’s struggling and pleading for Deacon to let him go. Braun stands at his side, close. Too close. Too close because he can feel the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest and smell his cologne. All he wants to do is step away, but his feet _won't move._ They won’t move him away from this horrible figment with cold eyes, and nasty, knowing grin. 

Braun reaches for a pair of bandage scissors on the instrument tray beside him and hands them to Deacon. 

“Please, no,” Deacon begs as his hands close around the scissors. He has to take them, there is no choice. Braun will make him if he does not. “Not this; not again. Not him. He never deserved any of this.”

“Does anyone who cares for you, Jack? Does anyone ever get what they truly deserve? Did I? Did you?” He chuckles. “You may begin.”

Deacon shakes his head.

Braun’s hands close over his shoulders as he slips behind Deacon. He dips his head close to Deacon’s ear. “You cut him up, or I’ll put Nick on this table.”

Deacon swallows thickly and dips his head in submission; anything would be better than that. He takes the bandage scissors and starts cutting Jonas’ clothing off around his chest. Sometimes, Braun makes him cut everything off, but Deacon knows he likes the juxtaposition of blood and guts with the crisp, clean lines of unsoiled clothing.

Braun releases his shoulders and steps around to the other side of the gurney. “Poor Jonas,” he laments with great mockery. “He was such a good friend to you; cared for you as a kid, treated you like one of the vault when others whispered behind your back. Patched up bruised knuckles and split lips so Daddy wouldn't know that you'd gotten into _another_ fight with Butch.” Braun directs him to pick up a scalpel and Deacon shakily puts down the scissors. “And what did you ever do for him? Hmm? He was, for all intents and purposes, your brother, and he died while you somehow survived. Mightn't this world have been better off with him in it, instead of you?”

Deacon looks up at Braun, fist closed tight around the scalpel. How many times had he thought that very thing?

“But it didn't work out that way, did it?” Braun taunts. “What good was it to kill Officer Mack when it couldn't bring Jonas back? All it ever did was gave you a taste of that blood you seem to love so much.”

“No, I don't...”

“Don't you?” Braun asks with a smirk. “Why don't you look at the mess you've made?” He points to the gurney. 

Somehow, in the intervening moments, Jonas has vanished from the table. In his place is Nick, human and glossy eyed in his death. Clothing sliced apart, top half of his rib cage discarded on a small table nearby, and organs slashed. His is blood pooled low in his intestines and splashed all over the gurney, floor, and Deacon. 

He tries to back-peddle, shocked and horrified at the scene before him, but he slips on the blood on the floor and hits the ground hard. The scalpel in his hand bounces away with a metallic _ping_. There’s a weight in his other hand and he brings it up to his face to see what it is. 

It’s Nick’s heart. 

He screams.

Above him, Braun laughs. 

//

He screams again, consciousness solidifying around him because he's suddenly plunged into ice-cold water. Deacon thrashes, fearing he's fallen into the Potomac in the dead of winter, but his feet hit the sides of Ticon's barrel bath. He calms momentarily as he throws a quick glance around and realizes that he's not in the Capital and not with Braun.

Strong hands are trying to keep him submerged in the frigid water and he starts struggling again. 

“Jesus,” High Rise swears above him, “Who knew he was so strong? He looks like he's about a 100 pounds.”

“The Deathclaws must have really put him through the ringer,” Uncles agrees grimly. 

“He's afraid,” Nick says, “Kid…Hey, kid, easy okay? Your runnin' a fever and we have to cool you down.”

Deacon slows his movements and blinks owlishly at Nick. “It's cold,” he says after a moment, teeth starting to chatter.

“I know, but just for a few minutes.”

“It's not that cold,” a voice says somewhere out of sight, annoyed. “It's only room temperature.”

But it doesn't feel like that, it feels like a frozen river. Deacon tries to tell himself to calm down, but his heart is still racing because of Braun, and this, and-

Deacon tugs a hand from their relaxed grip and grabs Nick by his shirt, splashing water everywhere. “Nick,” he says, voice frantic, “I'm sorry, I'm _so sorry-_ ” 

“It's okay, kid. I'm sorry too,” Nick interrupts, but Deacon talks right over him, hardly hearing.

“I shouldn't have said those things; I don't mean them. I just wanted to drag you into the dark with me, but your bright, Nick. So bright.” He’s starting to babble, the horror of the nightmare fresh and raw, and his teeth chatter uncontrollably. “He made me, Nick. I didn’t want to; I swear I didn’t want to. Braun told me it was you or Jonas, but he lied. It was you. And I don’t like blood, I don’t -he’s wrong, but somehow it was _everywhere._ On the table, and the floor, and all over my hands…” He shudders, but it’s lost in the shivering of his body.

“Shhh, hush.” Nick pushes back Deacons soaked hair from his forehead. “Fever dream, kid. It didn’t happen. I’m right here.”

Deacon lets go of Nick’s shirt so he can wrap his arm around Nick's neck in an awkward hug. His other arm is trapped against the side of the barrel, but both of Nick’s arms wrap around him and hold him tight. 

“You were dead,” he whispers, hot tears spilling over his already wet cheeks. “I had your heart in my hand and…and you were dead.”

“Jesus,” High Rise says again, voice cracking.

Uncle doesn’t say anything, and from this angle, Deacon can’t see him. Nick rubs his back and tries to sooth him. He’s not sure how long they stay like that: him cold and clutching onto Nick like he might disappear, and Nick trying to ease his fear by murmuring soft words, but eventually he stops shivering quite so hard and his teeth stop chattering. 

Suddenly, Carrington is crouching in front of Deacon’s face. He takes his temperature with a handheld device and hums as he looks at the readout. 

“His temperature has come down enough to take out of there. Best to get him dry and into bed,” Carrington says to the assembled group, then he looks at Deacon; exasperation covering a look of concern. “What did I tell you about not wanting to scratch your name off the active agent’s list?”

\- - - - -

He wakes for the second time to the sound of water ebbing and flowing, but this time, it doesn’t conjure any nostalgic memories of his vault. Deacon knows he's at Ticonderoga, and he's pretty sure Nick has worked his way into Deacon's bed once again. How either of those things came to pass, though, he has no idea. The last...however long it's been, is a fragmented blur punctuated by a few moments of fevered clarity. Fever being the key word here; Deacon aches in the aftermath of it and he’s bone weary. He feels like a vertibird airdropped him without a parachute. 

Theoretically speaking, of course; he would _never_ get into one of those flying deathtraps. 

“I'm not dead, right?” Deacon asks sleepily, not sure if he wants the confirmation or not. He would rather pretend that nothing outside this room exists and that, just for a moment, the easy weight of Nick's limbs is something he can have forever. 

“Not this time,” Nick replies lowly, his breath brushing the back of Deacon's neck. “Startin' to get the idea that that pretty much sums up your life.”

Deacon hums in agreement, because Nick's right. That _is_ his life. “So tell me, am I as fainty and weak as some 1800's Southern Belle in a too-tight corset when some dashing officer asks to dance with me twice in one night?”

Nick chuckles and Deacon can feel the reverberation along his spine. “Right now? Yeah, kid, I'd say you are. Should’ve listened to Amari. Hell, I should've.”

“And that, kiddies, is what happens when you don't listen to your medical professional!”

“In the future, please make an effort to listen.” 

Deacon shakes his head slightly. “No can do, the only doctor I ever listened to is no more.” He says this lightly, but Nick pulls him closer as if he might start sobbing again. 

Which is not going to happen. He's resolved to never think on this entire fucked up experience again, and thus avoid crying and carrying on.

“I'm not gonna to start bawlin’ again, Nick. You can ease up a bit.”

He doesn't.

“Maybe you should,” Nick replies.

“Hmm, leave myself open to emotional heartache and pain by going over it all again, or just go on like nothing ever happened. Tough choice.”

Nick is unimpressed. “One of these days, kid, you're gonna have to turn and face that yao guai. You can't keep runnin' forever.”

“Says who?” Deacon asks, opening his eyes to better focus his thoughts. With them closed it’s too easy to fall asleep again. The light of the room is dim, the daytime sunlight making a valiant but strained effort against the newspapers on the window. “Besides, any sane person would not face a yao guai after runnin' from it. That's how people get eaten.” 

“No one would accuse you of sanity; however, by the looks of those scars you got, I'd say you've faced something a bit bigger than a mutated bear.”

“Ah, but Nick,” Deacon says and he turns in Nick's arms to face him (he winces slightly in the effort, his muscles protesting), the blanket slides down to their waists. Deacon is in his Ticon pajamas and Nick in his dress shirt and trousers. It’s both oddly formal and intimate. “those scars are on my back. Clearly, I was runnin' away from that monster. If I had turned and faced it, I'd be dead.”

Nick makes a rumbling noise, and Deacon isn't sure if it's one of agreement or disagreement. Then, Nick slips his good hand under Deacon's t-shirt and traces the large scars arching across his back. Deacon stiffens momentarily, before relaxing into Nick's touch. He hasn't had a look at scars in a while and he hopes that between the stims and Georgie's paste they’re not quite so ugly anymore. He doesn't want to be vain about the matter, but they've kind of messed up the glorious stretch of his back.

He says as much to Nick.

“Oh, I don’t know. Seems pretty glorious to me.” 

Deacon grins, mischievous. “Why, Mr. Valentine, do you like my scars?” 

Nick shrugs, noncommittal, but Deacon don't believe him. He shows Nick his forearm.

“Barbed wire baseball bat.”

Nick peers at the pinpoints of white scars on his arm, hand momentarily stilling on his back. Deacon moves on, and shifts slightly back to pull up the sleeve of his other arm.

“Institute laser rifle,” he says pointing out the small scar A3-21 gave him. 

Next, he pulls down the collar of his t-shirt to show off the knife scar on his chest.

“You were there when I got this one.”

“Asshole with a knife,” Nick agrees.

“They're all assholes, Nick. No one nice tries to kill me. Case in point…” He pulls his collar to the side -the shirt is threadbare and loose and easily shows off the scars from the buckshot Sun had to pick out of his shoulder.

Nick's hand slides out from under his shirt to touch them, a collection of slightly puckered, white circles. Deacon pulls the shirt further down, stretching it to its limit to show off a bullet scar, “Raider did that,” he pulls up his shirt to expose a bullet scar near his belly button, “Slaver did that one. There’s also one on my leg from a raider.”

Nick watches with some interest, then his hand skims over an ugly section of twisted skin on Deacon’s hip, that even now is still pink. Deacon doubts it’ll ever be white and pretty like the rest.

“Enclave plasma rifle,” he says as Nick inspects it. “Secondary splash. Probably wouldn’t have any hip left if I’d taken the shot directly.”

Nick’s face is thoughtful as he touches the damaged skin. Deacon doesn’t like the idea he’s thinking about his time in the Capital; he catches Nick’s hand in his own and Nick’s eyes flick up to his, then slid away to another spot on his face. 

Nick touches the white line of a scar on his forehead. “This one?” he asks.

“From when I hit the ground after that car exploded in The Common. Didn’t really get the chance to bleed too much ‘cause I caught it with a stim pretty fast.”

Nick’s expression gets dark. “You said you’d stop almost dyin’,” he says, harkening back to the promise he got from Deacon that night.

“You know I can’t promise that; I shouldn’t have agreed to anything. Aside from the whole ‘secret agent’ thing, death follows me around like a radiation cloud.”

Nick makes a noncommittal noise. Then, he points to the scar above Deacon’s left eye. 

“Raider with a torque rod.”

Nick moves his hand to cradle Deacon’s neck, “How many of these scars are ones that I can’t see?”

“Well, there that one,” Deacon replies as Nick’s thumb strokes the front of his throat. He has to admit that Nick’s touchy-feely-ness is getting him a little hot and bothered. Deacon hasn’t had anyone touch him like this in a long time. “Broken cheek and nose from brawling; Vera fixed them up when I was in Quincy gettin’ a face change. Had a couple fractured ribs, uh… a super mutant broke my left arm.” Deacon laughs slightly. “That one was for Moira.”

“Save her from an attack?”

“No. I had to get grievously injured for our book.”

Nick raises an eyebrow in question.

“Okay, so maybe I should rephrase that. I wasn’t for her _specifically;_ she just wanted to study the effects of serious injuries and thus provide a better means of treating them. She wanted a broken bone, basically. Which, I might add, I didn’t agree to do, but she made the compelling argument that I got hurt on a regular basis, and because of that I might end up with a broken bone, but instead of healing it right away, I was to go to her so she could study it.”

“So where does the mutant come in?”

“I saved these two kids, er..young adults I guess, from some muties that had captured them. The first one was easy, but the second had been taken to a kitchen where a super mutant was gettin’ ready to eat him. Rushed the mutant, but he had a sledgehammer-” Nick winces in sympathy “-and you can probably imagine the rest.”

“Did the kid survive?”

Deacon grins. “Was there any doubt? That was also the first time I’d ever taken Med-X since I couldn’t use a stim to repair the break until I saw Moira, and I was in _a lot_ of pain. If you think traveling the Wastes sober is hard, try doin’ it high as a kite and hallucinatin’.”

Nick huffs a breath of incredulous laughter.

“To be honest, I have no idea how I made it back to Megaton, but Moira was so excited that I not only had a broken limb for her to poke at, I also had an uncommon reaction to a drug. Pretty sure that was the best Christmas present she ever got.”

“It was Christmas?!” Nick asks, laughing in earnest now.

“Well, I think it was actually closer to New Years…”

“You’re bullshittin’ me, aren’t you?”

“I would never!” Deacon replies will all the mock indignity he can muster. After a moment he laughs. “That actually happened, though. You know what they say, truth is stranger than fiction.”

“Not that anyone would believe that story.”

“But, do you?”

Nick makes a show of thinking about it. “Might,” he hedges, “If I got a look at the book of yours.”

“Why? So you can read about all the messed up things I did for it? You’d have a heart-attack. Metaphorically speaking, of course.” He raps Nick’s chest where his coolant pump is situated. 

“Now I really wanna read it.”

Deacon shrugs. “Sure. I mean, there’s got to be another copy of it somewhere in ‘Wealth, like a second edition or something. You make sure to let me know when you find it, and I’ll show you all the corresponding scars.”

“Or you could just show it to me now.”

“And get outta bed? Don’t think so. I’d have to get a fusion cell and hook it up...”

“You wouldn’t have to move an inch, kid. I could do all that.”

Deacon gives Nick a long look. “Tell ya what, Nick. You guess the code, and you can have in.”

“If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to ask.”

“You’d break into my personal safe without my consent?” Deacon asks with feigned affront.

“You know I wouldn’t, but…” Nick gives him a slow once over. “Do I have to guess, or could I make you tell me?” Nick’s voice drops and Deacon sucks in a small breath. 

“You wouldn’t be the first to try and manhandle a passcode out of me,” Deacon says with as much bravado as he can muster, but something tells him that Nick’s method of interrogation will be vastly different from Autumn’s. “I didn’t work out that time either.”

Nick’s mouth curls into a smirk as his hand trails down from Deacon’s neck to rest on his hip, right over the plasma scar. “Pretty confident you won’t crack.”

“Master spy over here. We’re trained not to crack under interrogation.”

Nick’s fingers ghost along the edges of his pajama bottoms and Nick leans forward, making to kiss Deacon, but there’s a knock on the door. Nick stops mid-motion. Deacon’s both relieved and disappointed; he’s not entirely sure he was going to be comfortable with the kind of interrogation Nick had planned.

“Hey, Dee, you awake?” 

It’s High Rise. His voice is low and muffled by the door, and if Deacon had actually been asleep he wouldn’t have heard him. Nice of HR to consider that. 

Nick gives him an _‘Oh well,’_ look and rolls away and out of bed. Deacon sits up as Nick crosses to the door. The bright light of the corridor makes Deacon wince and shy away like B-move vampire as High Rise enters the room. 

“Hey, Nick, how’s the patient?”

“Uncooperative, as usual,” Nick replies with a small smirk and Deacon can feel the tips of his ears go red. He hopes that it just comes off as post-illness colouring. 

“That’s Deacon in a nutshell,” High Rise says as he heads over to the bed. He sits on the edge and presents Deacon with a bowl of mac and cheese and a couple cans of purified water. “Complements of the chef.”

“Thanks,” Deacon replies and digs in. Codsworth really knows his way around a box of BlamCo. “How’s the old bucket of bolts?”

“Cheerful, sarcastic, occasionally passive aggressive, and really, really British. Like whoa. Not sure what I expected, but I think they programmed him with every stereotype they could find.”

Deacon laughs. “Yeah, that’s basically a Mr. Handy for you. At least he remembered my favourite dish.”

“Not sure he could forget, man. Carrington almost made him carry it up here, but I figured you feel better if it was me instead.”

“You didn’t tell Carrington that I have a _thing_ about Handy’s, right?”

HR scoffs. “No. He’d probably laugh and then get a Miss Nanny to freak you out.”

Deacon shudders. “As if I need another reason to avoid his clinic.”

“Right?” High Rise stands. “Take it easy for awhile this time, okay? I don’t want to have to hold you in a bath of cool water again.” HR frowns and shakes his head as if trying to dispel an unpleasant memory. “Carrington is gonna stick around until tomorrow, and you can hang stress-free with us as long as you like. You’re welcome to stick around too, Nick.”

Nick gives small smile and nods his thanks.

“Oh, and Dee?” High Rise says as he pauses in the doorway. “You should speak to Jolene when you get a chance. She’s been modifying your project, and she’s pretty antsy to talk with you about it.”

Deacon’s eyes dart to his desk. The small computer has gone from desk-sized to sprawling over several stacks of boxes and filing drawers. “What do you mean she’s been _modifyin’_ it?” he asks sharply, a note of panic in his voice.

“It needed more power, or rather, he did. You coulda told us it was an A.I. Uncle’s been on about a robot revolution since we realized it wasn’t just some fancy storage device. Look, just talk with Jolene, okay? She’s been looking after him.” 

High Rise leaves before Deacon gets a chance to ask anything else. Nick looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Vive la revolución,” he says, with a smirk. 

Deacon is about to make a smart-ass comeback when he realizes that there’s a microphone plugged into the computer and if it has regained its sapience then its probably listening in on everything they’re saying. Right now, he’s not sure he can trust whatever dregs of Eden have reformed into a whole. Not until he actually talks to it. Him. 

Deacon makes a _‘Be quiet,’_ gesture as he sets down his food and darts out of bed to yank the microphone cord from its plug. 

“Did you just do that for the reason I think?”

“Yes?” Deacon says as he leans against the desk, a little lightheaded from the sudden movement. “I mean, it depends on what you think the reason was.”

“That you didn’t want it, him, listening to us.”

“Well, we were just about to get down and dirty, and that’s not somethin’ I’m comfortable with.”

Nick cocks his head as Deacon takes a seat in the desk chair.

“Er…with him listenin’ to.”

Nick frowns. “It was a bluff,” he says. “I sorta expected you to call it before we broke out the lube.”

Deacon truly does flush full on red this time. He’s not entirely sure he’ll ever be able to look at the jar of petroleum jelly he has in his desk the same way again. Or use it to moisten rubber seals without imagining naughty things.

“After everything you’ve been through in the last while, a long while as I hear it -Deathclaws, kid? What was the Railroad thinkin’?” Nick shakes his head; Carrington and High Rise must have filled Nick in on a few things. “The point is; I don’t want to maneuver you into anything. Not after the trauma you’ve been through.”

“Thanks, Nick. Really. I probably would’ve called you on it, but I do want to, ya know? I just…” Deacon sighs, unable to express it properly.

“I get it.”

“Look, I know Braun probably made some crack about me sleepin’ around, but that’s not me. I’m pretty selective. Even gettin’ a blowie from Savage Zac had a purpose.” Deacon knows Nick saw that memory and he’d like the chance to explain himself.

Nick’s mood darkens. “That the guy with the pallet throne in his house?”

“Yeah. He was the leader of The Deathclaws.”

“Was?”

“Dead now. They pretty much all are, save for a few that escaped and the one that was captured.”

“So why were you…?”

“In flagrante delicto?”

Nick nods.

Deacon shrugs. “Only way to get him alone. It was important that he die and not slip away. We didn’t want him to start up again elsewhere. The whole point of me bein’ undercover with them was to wipe ‘em out, once and for all.”

Nick recoils slightly. “So you…”

“Lured him with the prospect of sex and then killed him? Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“Jesus… Was there no other way?”

“There’s always another way, but that was just the most expedient. Plus, it made use of a weakness.”

Nick is silent and looking at him like he didn’t realize Deacon was capable of that level of cold-blooded murder. Though, after what he saw in Deacon’s memories, he really shouldn’t be so surprised. 

“I don’t get it,” Deacon blurts out after the silence stretches too long. “You told Marty to hit the road after one little offence -one that had him helpin’ a friend, payin’ back a debt. Yet, here you are puttin’ up with all this crap from me. I’ve dragged you into so much trouble, almost gotten you killed on more than one occasion, have lied about _everything,_ and have shown to be fully capable of descending to a level usually reserved for raiders and slavers. Why are you still here, Nick? Because frankly, at this point, I’m startin’ to wonder just what your motivation is.”

Nick frowns and looks away. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s because you’re a mystery, kid, and I like those. Maybe it’s a shared kindredness because if I thought it was possible, I’d say you were from a time before the war. Either way, whatever it is that you are, it’s not whole. You aren’t,” Nick stresses when Deacon starts to protest, leveling him with an even gaze. “I don’t care what your argument is, you aren’t whole. Half of you is missin’, repressed, hidin’, whatever you want to call it and I’m waitin’ for the moment when you come back together. That’s why it was a bluff, kid because I don’t want half of you. I want all of you, and that makes you special; the exception.”

Deacon frowns -mostly because if he doesn’t he might actually get a little emotional over what is probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to him. “You know what they say about gettin’ what you want.”

“Yeah, I do.” Nick moves to lean on the desk next to Deacon. “Thing is, I think you want it too.”

“Who doesn’t want you, Nick?” He tries for levity, but it comes off as sounding wistful and sad. 

“I’m flattered, kid, but what I meant was, _you_ want to be whole.”

Does he? Most days it seems a pretty even fight between being who he was and being who he is now. He’d like to believe that who he is now is just as whole and hale as the one before, but Nick is right. Annoyingly so. He’s not whole, and he didn’t even really consider it until he met Nick and felt those rare moments of agreement within himself. He probably should’ve just stayed in New York instead of coming to the Commonwealth; he wouldn’t have to face all these things if he had. Too late to leave now, he’s got things he has to finish here before he can move on.

“You leavin’ then?” Deacon asks, gently twisting himself back and forth on the chair, his arm brushing against Nick’s trouser leg. 

“Yeah. Been gone longer than I thought and I gotta get back to Ellie.”

Deacon nods. “Just how long are we talkin’ here? I think I’m missin’ a few days.”

“Nothin’ new there,” Nick says with a laugh. “This is day three since we left Goodneighbour.”

Deacon sighs. That’s it. He’s done undercover work for The Railroad. It’s too damn hard on his health. He didn’t almost die this much when he only ran packages for them.

“Hey, kid, just so you know, Marty and I had an agreement and he broke that agreement. You and I, we’re a different ballpark.”

“Okay,” Deacon says, not sure what else to say. 

Nick shifts away from the desk, probably with the intent to look for the rest of his things, but Deacon snatches his hand as he stands from the chair. Nick gives him an inquiring look. Thoughts are crowding his brain with a dozen different ways to say what he wants to in a humorous manner to help mask the way it makes him feel vulnerable to ask. Thing is, he’s not really up to the level of ‘Deacon’ again, so it just comes out free of trappings and utterly exposed. 

“Kiss me.”

He’s not sure if it’s a demand or a question, but he needs the reassurance that Nick hasn’t given up on him just yet. 

Nick gives him a smile and does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“If you love somebody enough, you’ll follow where ever they go. / That’s how I got to Memphis. That’s how I got to Memphis…_
> 
> _I’ve got to find her and tell her that I love her so / I’ll never rest until I find out why she had to go._
> 
> _Thank you for your precious time, forgive me if I start to cryin’. / That’s how I got to Memphis. That’s how I got to Memphis.”_ -Tom T. Hall
> 
> Also, I suppose I should have mentioned this last chapter, but I have a [tumblr now](http://katrinajg.tumblr.com/) -which may or may not end up with stuff on it. So if you follow me, I’ll follow you and then I can lurk to my hearts content!


	17. This was built to immortalize our robot overlords. True story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;_   
>  _I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him._   
>  _The evil that men do lives after them;_   
>  _the good is oft interred with their bones._
> 
> _-Julius Caesar (3.2.79)_

Nick left a few hours ago and despite everything that’s passed between them, he’s not entirely sure he’ll see the man again. Nick has his life in Diamond City and Deacon has his with The Railroad, and the two don’t often meet. Problem is, he doesn’t know how to feel about that. It should be a good thing because it’ll make it so much easier to just pick up a leave once he’s settled things with Nora McCoy, but somehow it only manages to make him a weird, pining mess. 

Like, he still does want to leave after his he’s settled things, right? _Right?_ Deacon sighs. It would be nice if he could make up his mind about Nick. 

Either way, it’s a comfort to know that to at least one person he isn’t a complete fuck up.

Carrington was by to poke at him and tell him that he needs to gain his lost weight back. The doctor put Codsworth in charge of that much to Deacon’s annoyance. Now the robot has an excuse to cheerfully interject himself into Deacon’s life as much as possible. He wonders if High Rise really was truthful with him when he said that he didn’t mention his _thing_ about Handies to Carrington because this whole situation sounds like some he’s delight in torturing Deacon with.

Parade made herself at home in his room after Carrington left, to poke fun at him for being as skinny as her now. She called him ‘Scarecrow’ like he called her when they first met -both Mentats and cigarettes have a hunger suppressing effect. She even sang a rousing rendition of _‘If I Only Had A Brain’._

“Turn about’s fair play,” she said after she finished with a flourish. He’d forgotten she had such a good memory. He probably wouldn’t have teased her with that same song if he thought it would ever come back to haunt him. 

And now, he can’t stop whistling the tune.

Deacon whistles it as he sits, dressed in cleans clothes, after taking a bath (of his own accord, this time) and getting truly clean for the first time in a week, at his desk. His hair is drying into a curled and frizzy mess as he stares at the dark screen of computer he built, seeing his warped reflection in its dark depths, as he slowly twists the chair back and forth. He’s trying to work up the courage to actually press a key and bring the screen to life so that he might probe the being within.

High Rise had called it ‘him’.

Not that he expected it to reform into a ‘her’. Deacon just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly; it’s only been nine-ish months and already its making contact with the residents of Ticon? Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised; after all, he never knew what Eden loaded on that modified holotape and now he wishes he hadn’t been quite so rash in plugging the damn thing in.

Deacon lets out a frustrated sigh and hangs his head over the back of the chair. 

“I hope that isn’t aimed at me.”

Deacon twists his chair around and rolls his head over to the side so he can see who’s standing in the doorway. It’s Jolene.

“No. Sort of. I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It’s mostly aimed at him.” Deacon gestures at the dark monitor screen. 

“He can hear you, ya know,” Jolene replies as she enters his room. She takes a seat on top of his safe since it’s unusually clear of clutter. Probably because he hasn’t been around to cause clutter. 

Deacon waves the cord for the microphone. “Not right now, he can’t.”

Jolene furrows her brow in confusion and displeasure. “Why did you do that?”

“This may come as a surprise, but being a spy makes me a little paranoid about people listening in on my conversations.”

“And yet you built the computer in your room.”

“Hey, no one ever accused me of being terribly bright.”

Jolene gives him a slight smile and rolls her eyes, but the crease between her brows doesn’t disappear.

“So, HR said you wanted to talk to me about this…project of mine. Though, I gotta ask, how did you and why did you do all this?” Deacon gestures to the new sections of the computer that she built. 

“I used to do similar things while a slave for The Institute. After you were gone, I started checking up on it -before I knew it was a ‘him’- since it seemed a little slipshod. Please don’t take offence to that,” Jolene rushes to add. “everything out here is that compared to The Institute, and your work is solid, and…I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

Deacon laughs. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I know exactly where you’re coming from.”

“Okay, good.” She settles herself more comfortably on Deacon’s safe. “It was using more and more memory, and leaving little to none for the text input you were so insistent upon, so I started scaving for computer parts on patrols, runs, and when we went for supplies. Then, one day, while I was checking integration of the new components and he spoke to me. Or rather typed at me.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“There was a problem with one of the hard drives I scavenged. It was damaged and wasn’t working properly, but I didn’t realize that and it was causing all kinds of problems. As I was trying to fix it, I was talking aloud to myself. He heard. When I was checking integration for what felt like the millionth time, he told me what the problem was. Succinctly. No hi, or hello, or even an introduction. Just, ‘this is the problem’. Think I might have yelped in surprise because the next moment he was apologizing for scaring me.”

The first part doesn’t really sound like Eden —the man had a speech for every occasion—, but the apologizing bit does. The Southern Gentleman that he seemed to model himself after wouldn’t have allowed for anything less.

“You took the realization that an A.I. was self-diagnosing its problems well. I probably would have run, screaming, out into the common area.”

Jolene smiles. “I doubt that. Since you knew all along what he was.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Deacon just grins. “So, does this mystery A.I. have a name or are we just gonna call him ‘Him’ like some Old-World metal-rock band.”

She kind of laughs. “He said his name was Henry. Hence the masculine pronoun. Though, I don’t think anyone but me actually calls him that. HR has pretty much put the maintenance of the Henry into my hands and doesn’t come up here often. Parade doesn’t care except to occasionally pester him about information on you, which he won’t give up. Drummer is too busy with messages and runs to think about anything else. And Uncle refuses to even come to this part of Ticon because both him and Callie have a real aversion to the idea of formless A.I.”

Deacon frowns slightly. “They do realize that you’re a form of artificial intelligence, right?”

“Yeah. Well, after I said pretty much what you just did. That’s where the caveat of ‘formless’ comes in.” She shrugs. “They’re afraid that Henry will start taking over robots and terminals and any piece of tech he can until he finds some uplink to a satellite and somehow covers the globe. Which is ridiculous. I mean the sheer amount of power needed for that makes it pretty much impossible, not to mention the lack of a unified wireless network. In the confines of The Institute, yeah, that might actually happen (if he was even that kind of person), but out here? No way. I can’t seem to reason with them, though.”

“So, they’re totally okay with being waited on hand and foot by Codsworth, who has both a flamer _and_ a sawblade, but ole’ Henry up here, confined to this cobbled together computer, scares them?”

Jolene nods, glad someone else sees how ridiculous the situation is. Though Deacon had started the ball rolling on this project, if anyone saw it, it would be him.

“Granted, Codsworth only has a simulated personality,” Deacon concedes as he opens a desk drawer for a foot rest, “but still, one little glitch in his runtime program and bam! It’ll be a bloodbath up in here.”

“Why is it that you don’t trust Codsworth? He hasn’t been anything but helpful and nice since he got here.”

“Codsworth’s a nice guy, but as long as he’s a General Atomics’ creation, I won’t trust him, and since he can’t very well be anythin’ else…” Deacon trails off and shrugs. “I also happen to know the kind of person Henry was; however, how much of that is still there, remains to be seen.”

“Well, he’s very nice and polite, occasionally sarcastic, kind of funny, and really smart, but the way he talks sometimes…I don’t think he’s fully actualized -I’m not even sure that’s the right word, ‘cause he seems so real, ya know? He’s not a child, or even comparable to a Gen 2, but he’s not all together. Not yet.”

“I didn’t expect him to be. Hell, I didn’t think he would be this far along, not so soon. He has you to thank for that.”

Jolene ducks her head slightly at the praise. “Well, I did what I could, but the computer you built is way beyond any of the stuff I’ve managed to scavenge, technology wise. If you want Henry to keep ‘growing’ as it were, he needs more components like the ones you found.”

Deacon nods. “I know, but I won’t be going anywhere for a while. He’ll have to make do for now.”

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me where you got the parts?”

“No.”

She frowns slightly. “I saw the crates you brought in along with Codsworth. I know it was a vault.”

“Then why ask?”

“I was hoping you might tell me where the vault was.”

“’Fraid not. I like having a place to go to that no one knows the location of. Well, except ole’ Codsy, and I’ve sworn him to secrecy.”

“I know,” she replies, somewhat put out. Deacon laughs. “I would be easier with two people.”

“I plan on draggin’ Codsworth with me.”

Jolene raises an eyebrow. “Even though you don’t trust him?”

“Someone’s gotta push the cart.”

She shakes her head. “You are incredibly stubborn.”

“Part of my charm.”

“Oddly enough, Henry said the exact same thing about you and your stubbornness; however, I’m pretty sure he was being sarcastic.”

Deacon flashes her a grin, even though his insides clench at the idea Eden’s been talking about him behind his back. “But how could you tell through type alone?”

Jolene sighs and looks hurt. “I have no reason to tell anyone about your super-secret hiding spot, but you just go ahead and mistrust me, even though I looked after Henry.” She stands from the safe.

As she walks by, Deacon grabs her arm.

“I don’t mistrust you, Jolene. I just need a space that’s my own, away from everything when things get hairy. This is incredibly cliché, but it’s not you, it’s me.”

She glances at him and then down at where his hand is holding her arm. She looks like she wants to believe, but is hesitant. He should’ve guessed that she would take his refusal to talk personally. How many things was she shut out of by the people in The Institute because they considered her as nothing more than a talking coffee pot and refused to see the smart, talent, and caring _person_ that she is? 

He would have picked up on it sooner if he wasn’t still reeling from his own issues. 

Deacon moves his hand so he’s grasping hers. “Hey, come on, I don’t like lettin’ Nick in on anythin’ to do with me and he and I…we…-” he can’t even say the words, after everything that’s just happened, he’s just can’t say it. If has to actually acknowledge the emotions and make them real by saying them aloud, he isn’t going to be able to leave the Commonwealth when the time comes. “Just, don’t go away mad. I’m really impressed and very grateful that you looked after Henry for me, but please understand that lettin’ you in on the vault would be like-”

“Letting me see behind the curtain, oh Great Wizard of Oz?”

Deacon smiles. “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“Alright, but if you change your mind-”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

Jolene nods and Deacon lets go of her hand. 

“He asked a lot about you, ya know. Wanted to know if you were still alive.”

“I hope you answered ‘yes’ every time; I’m pretty hard to kill.”

“I answered truthfully, that we didn’t know; not until Glory passed through here on her way back to HQ. Anyways, you should talk to him yourself.”

Yeah, he should.

“Thanks. For everything,” Deacon says and Jolene gives him a small smile before leaving him alone. 

Well, not really alone. 

Deacon swivels back to face the dark screen. He stares at it for few moments in silence as he drums his fingers on the desk. Then, he frowns at himself and plugs the microphone back in. What’s he so hesitant about, anyways? 

The screen flickers to life, the cursor blinking on the line below the Welcome to RobCo Industries [TM] Termlink. After a moment a line of texts appears stating that the external device ‘microphone’ has been connected. 

Deacon is suddenly regretting that action. He isn’t sure he’s ready to deal with Eden after everything that has happened. Spending time with Nick has peeled back all his defensive layers and the idea of talking with Eden while being so _raw_ is unappealing in the extreme. He’s about to get up and leave, walk downstairs and putter around in the kitchen or pester High Rise when a single word appears on the screen:

Jolene?

Deacon stares at it, then he shoves the chair back and closes his room’s door. He stays at that distance as he says,

“No, Eden. It’s…Jack.” His voice catches slightly in his throat. 

The blinking cursor moves across the screen and he has to roll back up to the desk to read it clearly.

It is good to hear your voice again, though I understand that you do not like to go by ‘Jack’ any longer. Will ‘Deacon’ suffice?

Deacon laughs, slightly hysterically, because Eden actually cares what name he goes by. He has no idea what that means to Deacon. Especially since he can’t get Nick to use his codename anymore.

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

I hope you would do me the same consideration and call me Henry, not Eden.

“Bad memories?”

It is an identity that I do not fully comprehend anymore and I feel it is wrong to use the name associated with it. My memories are neither good or bad, they are a collection of data and I am left to interpret them as I see fit.

“Henry is kinda formal, though, don’t you think? I mean I could shorten it to Hank, but that’s…weird. How ‘bout JH?”

That is acceptable.

“You do realize that contractions are a thing, right? It would make typing faster.”

Typing implies that I use a keyboard for input, which I…don’t.

“See? Was that so hard, you’re sounding more human already.”

Considering the state of the world, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the comparison.

Deacon starts laughing; he imagines that Eden would be raising a brow as he said that if he had one to raise. This whole thing is surreal, and strangely going better than he thought it would. He relaxes slightly.

I’m glad you’re still alive, and not simply because your death would have meant mine.

“Aw, JH, I’m gettin’ all choked up here,” Deacon replies with a mocking waver in his voice. “You’re the only one who really knows who I am; I feel a special closeness between us.”

You jest, but I believe it’s true. Fate keeps throwing us together, Deacon, and I have a rather unexplained ‘soft-spot’ (I believe that’s the colloquial term) for you.

“I have that effect on most people. They like me but have no idea why. Pretty useful actually.”

I imagine so. Still, I do wonder at this attachment. It makes little sense, as I don’t really know you. I have data from conversations past, but it is not the same as first-hand data.

“Is that a subtle hint for me to not pull the plug on the microphone again?”

While I rather you didn’t I actually meant that I hope we’ll have future conversations for me to derive data from so that I may understand why I’m predisposed to like you.

“Not entirely sure if that’s an insult or not,” Deacon replies. “But hey, my caps are on the simple fact that you saved my life and I saved yours. Somethin’ like that ties two people together whether they want to be or not. I might actually believe in Fate if life hadn’t been so mercilessly cruel to me and thousands of others.”

Perhaps life’s cruelties are Fate’s hand at work, pushing you into the direction that you are meant to go, forging you in the fire of its hardships.

“That’s awfully philosophical of you. Also, I would like to point out that that is utter bullshit and I haven’t heard anything so ridiculous since Mama Murphey tried to tell me my future.”

As charming as ever, Deacon.

“I do try.”

Back to the subject of ‘Fate’, Jolene has mentioned this belief to me on a couple different occasions, it seems to be the way she deals with the ordeal she suffered at the hands of The Institute and the subsequent trials she has had to deal with in joining The Railroad. I find that I like the idea of Fate, as strange as that may be for a machine because the idea of a singular, inescapable purpose is comforting and familiar to my programming. Perhaps it is the same for her, who can say?

I am curious, though. What did this ‘Mama Murphey’ say about your future?

Deacon leans back in his chair, the joint squeaking slightly as he does so. “Oh you know, the usual stuff about trouble with a capital T. I’ve taken to avoiding pool halls.”

What does a pool hall have to do with trouble?

“I see your library on American movies didn’t make the move. Well, maybe I can scrounge up some holotapes in one of the vaults. Must have been a difficult decision—” Deacon holds his hands up like he’s weighing two objects. “—presidents or movies? Not sure which one I would have chosen myself.”

A difficult decision to be sure. You’ve failed to answer my question, though.

“Failed. Ignored. Who’s to say?”

I was hoping you might. Are you dodging the question because it is trouble, as you said, or because you fear what she said?

Deacon frowns annoyed. “She’s a chem-addled kook. Forgive me for not puttin’ much stock in, or wantin’ to talk about, her ‘prediction’.”

And yet, if it truly meant nothing to you, you would have already told me what it was that she said.

“Nobody likes a know-it-all, JH.”

Must by why you have so few friends.

Deacon burst into laughter as he reads that line. “Wow, that was a zinger. I walked right into that one, didn’t I? How about this: before I tell you what Mama Murphey said to me, why don’t you tell me why you want to know?”

There have been several stories told to me (or rather recorded on this hard drive, since I don’t believe the majority of agents that travel through this house have any idea that they’re telling these stories to a ‘who’ and not a ‘thing’) about a psychic in Quincy who has uncanny accuracy in her predictions.

However, all this is told to me after the prediction has come ‘true’, and thus cannot be trusted as people remember the prediction that came to pass, but not one that had a negligible effect on them. I am curious to see if this phenomenon of accurate predictions is true. Though you are merely one subject, and that’s not enough data to base a conclusion on, I also have a vested interested in your safety and as such, I want to know to both satisfy a curiosity and to caution you, should the prediction be one of danger.

“I wasn’t danger, just annoying.” Deacon sighs and explains briefly about Nora McCoy, Vault 111, and his idea that she’s the vault dweller ‘saviour’ that the ‘Wealth needs. Then, about how Lee Long told him that Mama Murphey wanted to see him and how the kid knew to call him ‘Mr. One-Hundred-One’ from the old woman. Deacon had to see her after that. Finally, he tells JH the actual prediction.

“Basically, it went something like-” Deacon affects the voice of an old lady, “101, I see that number over you, kid. It’s a blazing banner. I see her too, 111, but listen, this chick, that you’ve never met, isn’t gonna be what you want. Why? Who knows, I’m tryin’ to be as vague as possible here so that it fits into your life. Also, there can be only one! But which one of you it will be, I don’t know.”

There’s a great deal of derision in your voice, Deacon. You have no way of proving if her prediction is true or not, and yet you are assuming it’s false.

“She takes chems as payment/vision fuel. So I’m gonna assume that she’s an addict that’s spouts nonsense to gullible Wasters in order to get her next hit. Look, I don’t know how she knows who I am _—was,_ or about Nora and Vault 111, but it’s entirely possibly that she heard a tale from some caravanner or somethin’. The supernatural is not what I immediately look to for answers about things I cannot explain.”

And yet, you cannot prove or disprove something until there is evidence to support one view or the other. Chems or no, you have no empirical evidence that what she says is false.

Deacon stares at the screen in disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m having an argument with a logical machine over the merits of psychics. Do I need to check outside and see if the sky is green and the grass blue?”

I’d forgotten you could be so dramatic. I am simply trying to point out that without evidence one way or another, there is no point in making a decision about the truthfulness or falsehood of the prediction.

I rather think that the reason you’re so determined that it isn’t true is because you’re worried she might be right, and you’d rather not have to get any more involved in the Commonwealth than you already are. Why that’s the case, I don’t know. You’d be much better equipped to handle solving the Commonwealth’s problems than Mrs. McCoy.

Deacon starts to get mad. “You think you can just come back from the dead and suddenly understand who I am? Or get my motivations? I may have written you a letter filling in the details of the things that happened since we last met, but that’s not the same as living through the hell that has been my life since I stepped out of that fuckin’ vault. P.S. my level of involvement in the ‘Wealth is not something you are free to comment on.”

Why not? Do you honestly believe I have no idea the sort person you are? Eden kept a great deal of data on you, data I have access to. There is also all the information relayed to me by the agents that live in this safehouse about you, and then there are your own words. I know that despite being capable of great things, you are spending your time being decidedly mediocre. It’s distressing to see. Thus, if I don’t comment on your involvement in the Commonwealth, who will? No one else knows the sorts of things you have done, save perhaps for Mr. Valentine.

“That’s the _fucking_ point!” Deacon snaps at the screen. “I don’t want anyone to know who I was, or what I’m capable of. Which by the way, isn’t greatness, it’s death. And if I want to spend the rest of my life in mediocrity, that’s none of your business. I have a plan, and that plan doesn’t include me trying to clumsily save another wasteland from itself only to makes things worse.”

How can you be sure things are worse? You haven’t been to the Capital Wasteland in 5 years.

“Because I know the kind of people that were left in charge of it. The Brotherhood doesn’t care for the people of the Capital, only for advancing their own agenda of technological superiority.”

Then why did you leave? Why didn’t you shape the Brotherhood into something worthy of the Capital?

That’s the very question The Lone Wanderer asked when Deacon left the Capital Wasteland behind. 

“Why does it have to be my responsibility?!” Deacon asks, voice breaking. He’s hovering somewhere between anger and shame. “Why do I have to make these decisions, and shape these places? Can’t someone else be in charge of these things? Isn’t it enough that I gave everything I had to the Capital? Haven’t I sacrificed enough?”

Have you made those sacrifices mean something? If you never righted the wrong the Brotherhood perpetrated against you, then aren’t you just setting someone else up for the same experiences you had to endure? If they can get away with destroying the famed Lone Wanderer, then it’s safe to assume, they will believe themselves capable of getting away with anything.

What happens when they expand their reach beyond the Capital’s borders? And it will happen, Deacon; sooner than you would like, I think. Will you ignore their presence until it is too late for you to do what you should have done in the Capital when they were still a fledgling problem? Or will you cease cowering under an assumed name and take responsibility for the organization that you gave the power and means to control half of the continental United States?

He clenches his fists and fights the urge to scream because this ghost of Eden has managed to point out every single thing that Deacon hates himself for. The things he staunchly ignores with every breath, with every fiber of his being, because the idea of confronting them would mean he’d have to acknowledge that he’s not only a coward (that he could live with), but that’s he’s a _hypocrite_ of the highest calibre. He wouldn’t survive that realization, not with his appalling love of the moral high ground and how he likes to hold over everyone. 

“Why do you think I plugged you back in?” Deacon snarls, lashing out. “This isn’t pity, or empathy on my part, Eden. You’re here as a back-up in case the shit hits the fan. If I had any other choice, that holotape would've never been used. You’re a necessary evil, nothing more. And _if_ The Brotherhood makes an appearance in the Commonwealth, I’ll consider doin’ something about them. Until then, I’m gonna to live in the obscurity I deserve.”

Ah, so you’ve gone from being one of the bravest individuals I’ve had the pleasure to meet, to being one of the greatest cowards. How far you’ve fallen, Jack.

Those words feel like a slap across the face. 

“As if I ever cared what you thought of me,” Deacon bites out, lying to cover the sting. “So let me make one thing very fuckin’ clear: if the time comes and I need that backup plan, you had better do _exactly_ what I say, or I will throw your whole cobbled mess into a raging tire fire and not feel one moment of remorse for it.”

Deacon stands then and rips the microphone cord out of its plug because he’s not about to give Eden anymore ‘data’ on him. Then, he storms out of the room. 

Thus, he misses JH’s reply.

If you were truly capable of the level of cruelty, you never would have saved my life to begin with.

\- - - - -

He doesn’t talk with Eden for a week, preferring to stew in his own anger and then as he calms preferring to just ignore the problem altogether. He doesn’t think Eden meant any malice with his comments about Deacon and his involvement in the ‘Wealth, and the only reason he typed that last comment was because Deacon had insulted him first. Everything Eden said is in Deacon’s ‘no talking about’ folder and he managed to expertly display it all and force Deacon to remember all the reasons he’s a shitty human being. 

So clearly, he had to instantly go to DEFCON 1 and threaten death. As if he needed another example of his issues turning him into an asshole. Nick was right, he has a sense of humour about everything but his past. 

Even in light of all the embarrassment he feels for flipping out on JH, there’s still a nagging voice in the back of his head that keeps telling him that the whole thing with Eden is a really bad idea and this is a prime example of why: there’s just too much history between the two of them and Deacon can’t deal with Eden objectively.

During that week, Codsworth constantly pesters him to eat, much to Deacon’s annoyance. Codsworth has apparently taken Carrington’s threat of dismemberment if he delivers a Deacon even one pound underweight when he returns to The Switchboard very seriously. Codsworth’s mothering of him amuses everyone else in Ticon except for Jolene. He suspects this is because of his argument with Eden; he’s been getting disapproving looks from her all week.

It comes to a head a couple days into the second week of Deacon's convalescence, at breakfast. He's standing at the counter pouring himself a cup of coffee when Jolene appears beside him and grabs a mug from the cupboard. He can just feel her condemnation rolling off her in a wave and he's had about enough of it. He steps around her to grab the brahmin milk out of the fridge and as he's closing the door he speaks.

“Say it. Whatever words of resounding disapproval you have concerning me, I can feel them beginning to boil over, so just say it.” Deacon pours his allotment milk and hands the jar to Jolene, he knows she likes it in her coffee as well. “I'm a stationary target; shoot.”

She frowns as she takes the milk. At the table, High Rise, Uncle, and Callie go quiet -Parade is a late riser and Drummer left earlier on a message run. 

“It's now or never Jolene because once I grab my breakfast from Jeeves over there—” he's decided to call Codsworth that in an attempt to keep his humour about the Handy’s mothering. “—this topic will be closed and you'll have missed your chance.”

“The hash browns and brahmin strips will be ready in approximately five minutes, sir,” Codsworth chimes in, as helpful as ever. 

Deacon's stomach is rumbling at all the savory smells wafting in the air. It’s been so long since he’s had regular, home-cooked meals. The rest of the agents here are spoiled by having a Handy to wait on them. 

Jolene spoons some sugar into her coffee and then set the utensil down, purposefully. “You can't treat him like some malfunctioning computer,” she announces sternly. “Like some unruly machine that needs a reset. It's childish and irresponsible.”

“I haven't treated him like that, though I will concede that I am occasionally childish and irresponsible.”

“Haven't you? You have one, little argument and you unplug his microphone in retaliation. Do realize what that's like? That would be like me shoving wax in your ears so you couldn't listen to any sounds because we had a spat.”

She has a point, he did it out of anger and spite, and it's not his finest moment. At the same time, it wasn’t just some ‘little’ argument. It was a pretty big one, in fact. He's also not comfortable with Eden listening to every stray word that comes out of his mouth since Eden is at heart a program designed to analyze and interpret data. Deacon’s a little worried about being manipulated. 

“Not exactly the same, but I understand where you're comin’ from. Also, it wasn’t a spat, it was a full-blown, nasty name-calling fight, and when you have one of those you often do things you regret.” Deacon sets his coffee down with a sigh. “Look, I get that the two of you are friends—”

“Yes, we are. More so than it seems the two of you are, and yet Henry is bending over backward to accommodate you. He won't let me leave the microphone plugged in, he asks that I remove it until _you_ plug it back in to speak with him. Does anyone get to dictate to you the use of your ears? Or voice? Or sight? Yet, because he's a housed in a computer, you treat him like he's a machine ready to be used or discarded at your pleasure. You don't treat me like that, and the only difference between us is I've got a face.” 

She’s really decided to unload on him now, and he suspects that it's not all about Eden. 

“There's a vast difference between you and him, Jolene. It's like saying ghouls and humans are the same when one is healed by radiation and one is killed by it. JH —Henry, is an A.I. far different from you; he began as a pre-war computer and you as an organic/synthetic hybrid. We also have a history, a sorted one you might say, and while I'm sure he's nothin’ but friendly and pleasant to you, you don't know the kind of things he and I went through together or the things I went through after I had his program on that holotape. Granted, I was angry when I yanked the microphone cord out, but I'll thank you to not assume that I don't understand the gravity of the action, as immature as it was.”

“Do you? Because your actions state otherwise. You wouldn't have let this situation go on this long if you’d been dealing with me or anyone else in Ticon.”

“Actually, if I thought I could get away with refusin’ to talk with any of you for a week or more because of an argument, I would. I just know you won't let me. JH can't stop me from not talking to him.”

“Exactly. You’re using his lack of mobility and limited means of communication against him, to treat him like he isn't even a person. He’s not just some machine for you pick at and tinker with whenever it strikes your fancy. He’s as real as you or me.” She makes a motion of frustration. “This is exactly what _they_ did to us. All day long it was ‘lift that package’ and ‘tote that barge’ and God forbid we have even one moment of self-recognizance or question one little thing because if you ever did they would come down on you like a fusion bomb and wipe you out.”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose, he's a little irate that she would compare him to an Institute scientist. “We had a fight. I got angry and now I don't want to talk to him because of it. There really isn't anything more normal, more human, than a disagreement. Just like you and I are having right now. If I thought he was less than an individual I wouldn't waste my breath on a conversation with him and thus I wouldn't have had an argument. 

“The very fact that he can even stir me into anger is a clear indicator that I care enough about what he says and how he says it. I freely conceded your point about the microphone, but don't you _dare_ say or even suggest that I am in any way, shape, or form like the members of The Institute.”

“Or what, Deacon? You'll pull out some of my wiring so I can't hear or speak to you?” Jolene advances on him. “You'll treat me like a lowly robot that you can take apart because I'm not working right? You must be thinking right now: how can I get a little more obedience out of her and little less lip?”

Oh, now he's angry. 

“Get out of my face,” Deacon growls because if he has to look at her for one more moment he will say something he'll regret. He knows that all of her anger and vitriol isn't solely directed at him, that's he just a convenient scapegoat for her right now, but so help him God, if she says _one more word_ comparing him to some asshole from The Institute, he'll not be responsible for his actions. 

“Is that an order from one mighty human to a degenerate synth?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Deacon can see High Rise start to stand from the table to put an end to this, but Deacon holds out his hand. If HR has to intervene for him, the two of them won't work this out properly. High Rise stills giving him a moment to handle it the way he needs to.

“No. That's an order from a _senior_ Railroad heavy to a _junior_ Railroad agent. As of this moment, you're suspended from participating in any missions or runs until further notice.”

Jolene's flushes red and then looks for a moment like she regrets lashing out, but then her face is steely once more. She looks to High Rise for confirmation, since technically safehouse leader trumps heavy. HR nods in agreement with Deacon's words. Jolene frowns and stomps angrily out of the kitchen. Callie follows her after a moment with a few murmured words about checking on her. 

There's silence in the kitchen for a couple of heartbeats, then:

“Well, _that_ could have gone better, Master Bertram. I hope it hasn't spoiled your appetite,” Codsworth says to him as he floats over with the skillet of hash browns and brahmin meat. 

_Yeah,_ Deacon thinks, _it certainly could have._ He didn't want to come down on Jolene like that, probably wouldn't if she hadn't gotten so disrespectful. 

Disagreements among agents are very common, take him and Sly Nick for example, but Deacon's never compared the man to an Institute agent. Yes, he has lately challenged Sly Nick’s leadership, but he believes he has been legitimately upset about everything that has gone one between the two of them. He doesn’t doubt that Jolene has her own list of legitimate things to be upset about, but he’s not the bad guy she needs to confront.

Discipline and a respect of ranks are the only things that keep The Railroad from dissolving into ineffectual anarchy. They have to have these things, even more than their covert nature (though they could stand to have that slightly higher on the priories list), to be an effective organization. Sure individual safehouses are more akin to families than say a Brotherhood patrol group, but in situations like this, rank comes into play and it comes in hard. 

In The Railroad, rank is hard-won through experience and survival. There are no senior agents or heavies that haven't paid their dues in plenty of blood, sweat, and tears. Even Mr. Timms, of Randolph house infamy, had dozens and dozens of runs, missions, and operational leads under his belt before he was ever given a safehouse to run. 

Deacon accepts the plate that Codsworth dishes out for him and dreams wistfully of the day he'll get to spoon out his own food. Breakfast is quiet save for the clinking of dishes. 

Parade shuffles in when the three of them are nearly done makes a beeline for the coffee pot, pours herself a mug, then leans on the counter squinting in the bright light. After a moment of continued quiet, she says,

“Alright, who died?”

There’s a brief smattering of laughter that manages to lift their mood. Uncle will no doubt fill Parade in on everything that just happened when Deacon leaves the table. 

After breakfast, Deacon trundles back upstairs and into his room. If he is going to eventually make amends with Jolene, he has to start with Eden -Henry, JH. He supposes that the first thing to do is start thinking of him as JH and not as Eden. Though, if he'll ever really be able to do that remains to be seen. 

Deacon takes a seat at the desk and plugs the microphone cord in. As the notification for the device appears on the screen, there’s a knock at the door. He hesitates a moment in answering it and considers unplugging the cord again but decides against it. If he's going to do this, he might as well start now. Deacon calls for the person at the door to come in, hoping that it isn't Jolene; he'd rather not talk with her again right now.

It's High Rise, and he's brought himself a chair. Oh good. Deacon rolls back from the desk and toward the bed to make space for HR.

“So I take it we are about to have a long conversation,” Deacon says lightly as High Rise settles himself in front of the desk.

“Who knows, but I know you only got the one chair, and I don't want to sit on the bed.” HR shrugs. “So…”

“Yeah.”

“That wasn't all about you, man. Jolene, I mean. That's been buildin' for a while. I don’t think you were around for Glory’s spectacular blowout, but after all the shit they go through at The Institute, it’s accepted that the synths that retain their memories have a ‘fuck everything and everyone’ moment.”

“Figured. I did exasperate it, though.”

“Hey, as far as I'm concerned you're both to blame for that, but she went too far. I think the punishment was just. For a week or so, ya?” Deacon nods. “The rest of us have just been lettin' her have her way with your computer friend-”

“Henry.”

“Right. She thinks she knows what's best for him, and she probably does, but it seems you don't agree.”

“Jolene doesn't know him like I do, even as changed as he is.” Deacon sighs. “She thinks I don't get that he's a person, but what she doesn't understand is that he isn't like her. He never had an Institute full of people that treated him less than human. Just the opposite in fact. Not only that, but JH doesn't think the same way Jolene does. She has an organic brain —mostly, and she views the world in the same manner we do, if not with the same emotional outlook. 

“JH has always been confined to a computer, viewing the world through a camera lens and hearing via microphone; he thinks with the processes and outlooks of a computer. I don’t say this to degrade him or her, it’s just that..." He makes a noise of frustration. "They’re just different.” Deacon scrubs a hand over his face, unable to communicate more than that without giving a history lesson. "I'm not mad at her, well right now I am a bit because really? The Institute? But JH does need a friend and I'm glad he has her.” 

“Yeah, the Institute comment was—” High Rise whistles and makes a face. “Give her a couple of days and then you two can apologize to each other and make up. Can't have the two of you fightin'.”

“I didn't mean to come here and upset everything, HR, and for that I'm sorry.”

“That's life. Like you said, disagreements make us human. If everything was always hunky dory we’d all be buncha mannequins, and how dull would that be? In the end, it's how we deal with the fallout of an argument that tells other who we are and I got a pretty good idea of the kind of people you two are. Things'll settle down between you two.”

“Hope so.” 

“I have no doubt.” High Rise stands, “I'll go and have a word or two with Jolene. And don't think this is an excuse to get out of supper tonight. You'd better be there in all your sunshiny glory, Dee.”

“Will do,” Deacon replies with a salute and High Rise laughs. Then, he wheels his chair out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Deacon is left with JH. 

He rolls his chair back over to the desk and sits in front of the screen. Deacon knows that JH just heard all of that conversation and waits for some sort of observation to come. Deacon starts to think that he'll have to start this conversation off himself when words start appearing on the screen.

Did you mean for me to hear that discussion?

“No, not really, but after gettin' my ass reamed out by Jolene over my treatment of you, I decided that she was partially right in that I shouldn't have yanked your microphone cord out in childish retaliation, so once it was back in I had to leave it. Come what may.” Deacon twists in his chair for a moment before adding. “I also shouldn't have threatened to throw you into a fire, so sorry. That threat was directed at Eden and you aren't really him anymore, are you?”

Not entirely, no.

“And I'm still tryin' to get that through my head. However, in the interest of clarity, I want you to know that, if you give me cause, I will destroy you, but not necessarily because you didn't follow orders.”

And what constitutes destruction at your hands so that I might avoid it?

“Murderous rampages and ideals that mean the death of half the population for no good reason. Look, I'm sort of hopin' here that you might pull from presidents like Washington and Lincoln as a template for behavior and not ones like Nixon or Richardson.”

Ah… Is that why you've had this influx of data from Railroad agents and synths? Believing it might bring that programming to the forefront?

Deacon nods but adds knowing JH can’t see him, “Yeah, pretty much. Think it's worked?”

Any answer I give, I imagine you won't believe. So I suppose we'll have to find out together.

“What? No words of reprimand?”

Should there be? It's a logical plan, and I cannot find fault with that.

“Huh. I guess I sorta expected an argument along the lines of attempting to influence your program would be akin to brainwashing or something. I think Jolene would have called it that, anyway.”

Is it any different than a parent attempting to influence the behavior of a child through example? Your plan is sound, cunning even, but I'm guessing you believed that I put the words of her dissatisfaction with you in her mouth?

“Believed? No. Slightly uncomfortable feeling? Yeah.” Deacon sighs. “But I’m gonna try and put aside all that past stuff and give you a bit of trust, a bit of rope; whether or not you hang yourself with it, remains to be seen.”

How generous of you.

Deacon can’t help but smirk slightly as he reads that line. “I see that you’re fond of your sarcasm.”

Do you disapprove?

“No!” Deacon says with a laugh. “The opposite in fact. I don't think Eden had a sarcastic bone in his body, so I'm glad that you've gone a different route with the whole 'humour' thing.”

It pleases me to please you.

“Don’t say that, or type it. Jolene has enough reason to hate me right now, and I don’t need to add to that list.”

If she were to hate you because of that, she would be a hypocrite, and I know she’s not. Jolene is simply jealous, as well as unsure of her position in this world.

Deacon frowns slightly at the screen. “I get the second thing, it’s hard to scrub the negative messages from your psyche once they’ve been drummed into your brain, and the Commonwealth’s shitty attitude toward synths doesn’t help, but what does she have to be jealous of? If it wasn’t abundantly obvious from our last conversation, you and I aren’t friends, JH. We’re acquaintances at best, and even that is suspect considering your new found identity.”

There’s a moment where JH doesn’t respond; the cursor just blinks lazily on the screen and Deacon wonders if he’s maybe been just a little too honest about the situation between them. He could have pretended they were friends until it was true. After all, ‘fake it until you make it’ is his specialty.

Most of my memories of ‘President Eden’ aren’t what you could consider memories. They are more akin to impressions, and conclusions of data. I assume this is because of space constraints as I don’t record memories in this manner. However, there is one ‘true’ memory that was stored on that holotape. The memory is of you visiting your father’s cryo-storage pod.

Deacon stares at the words in silent surprise. He has to swallow a couple of time before he can croak out, “What? Why? Why would he do that?”

Deacon remembers that day well, he almost had to relive it in the Memory Lounger. Why would Eden keep that memory, when there had to be thousands of others, of better ones than that?

I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that, only speculation. I believe this is the foundation for that ‘soft-spot’ I mentioned earlier, however, how or why it has taken on such a prominent part in my programming, I can’t say. I did not tell Jolene about the specific memory; however, I did mention that my programming places a large importance on your approval. Of course, it is not the ‘be all and end all’ of my preferences for individuals. Until this recent argument between you and I, it didn’t bother her.

“That you were aware of, and plus, isn’t that what that means?”

Yes and no. I am capable of placing more weight on certain data based on logical superiority, regardless of the source or programmed preference; I thought I was clear about that. Ultimately, this preference is no different than someone taking the word of the friend over a stranger. As individuals, are we not supposed to place greater importance on the words of friends?”

“Yeah, but the thing is, Jolene isn’t a stranger. She’s the friendliest face you’ve got in this place and not only that, she’s been lookin’ after you.” Deacon sighs and leans back in his chair. “I get it now, why she feels like you should place her above me on the scale of ‘important people’. She relates to you on a _huge_ level, and yet you essentially ‘like’ me better than her, for reasons you can’t entirely explain.”

Must I have a reason?

“Yeah. I mean, we as people have reasons for liking someone. It can be shallow or as complex as you like, but a reason exists.”

Then, I shall endeavour to find one.

Deacon kind of laughs. “You can’t just manufacture one, JH, or find one like some random cap stash. You have a reason for this programming preference, and either it hasn’t been fully actualized in your system yet, for a number of reasons —one of which may be the lack of processing power, which I plan to remedy in the next little while— or you’re pleading ignorance until you understand it.”

There’s another bout of…well, not silence since Deacon’s the only one making noise, but clearly, JH is considering his words and deciding what to say.

I want us to be friends, Deacon.

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Want? Or need?”

…Want. While it would leave part of my programming perpetually unfulfilled, I don’t need your friendship, but while there’s the possibility of having it, I wish to do what I can to obtain it.

“Well, I guess you’re in luck, JH, ‘cause I’d like to be friends too. Just, know that there are some things that I don’t like to talk about, so if you bring them up, I will shut you down.”

Duly noted, however, I make no promises to listen.

\- - - - -

He lets another week or so pass until he’s firmly in that ‘3 weeks into recovery’ period before he decides to chance a trip up to Vault 111. He brings it up to High Rise the day before he’s decided to head out so that they know he’s going to be taking Codsworth with him and that he’ll be gone for several days.

HR isn’t really crazy about the plan.

“What if you’re injured on the road or somethin’ and we have no idea where you are? Or how to find you?”

“Codsworth will rush right back, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, if he’s still in one piece. I know there’s no stoppin’ you once you’ve made up your damn mind. Just, can’t you take someone else with you? Someone who breathes?”

Deacon shakes his head and High Rise makes a noise of frustration. 

“I’m not incapable of defendin’ myself, HR. I’ll be fine.”

“Sure, if you were at 100%, but we both know that’s way off yet.”

“Hey, come on, I’m back up to 150lbs. That’s almost my starting weight; plus, Parade has been draggin’ me out on patrols with her, and the maintenance of this place has fallen back into my lap, so it’s not like I’ve been coolin’ my heels and doin’ nothin’ for the last month. Look, I need to go; JH really can’t wait any longer for me to get my shit together.”

“Just…be careful, Dee.”

Deacon gives him a wide grin. “Aren’t I always?”

High Rise isn’t convinced, but Deacon leaves the next day anyways.

For the first few hours, Codsworth chatters away. The trolley that Deacon first scrounged and brought to Ticon is stacked with the empty Vault-Tec crates and it seems to rattle in time with Codsworth’s voice as he talks about nothing and everything. Deacon forgot how annoying he was on a long journey. 

When he starts to consider shooting Codsworth, Deacon decides that it’s time to do something about the chatter. So he interrupts Codsworth in the middle of a story about him trying to get Ticon’s protectrons to help with the housework and asks if Codsworth knows any songs by John Phillip Sousa. 

“Certainly, Master Bertram, they used to play with great frequency before the War.”

“Good, cause there’s a couple that I like to whistle, so how about we form a duet?”

The idea seems to tickle Codsworth and they spend the rest of the journey perfecting their rendition of _’The Washington Post’_ and then _’Manhatten Beach’._ It comes together much faster than Deacon thought it would, and they make a pretty good harmony if he does say so himself. At this rate, he may have to start in on _’The Stars and Stripes Forever’_ and maybe _’Semper Fidelis’_ -if he can even remember how that last one goes. Either way, this is much better for Deacon’s sanity than the robot’s idle chit-chat.

It’s late afternoon when they arrive in Sanctuary Hills, and they pause in their journey to the vault so that Codsworth can check on the condition of his family’s home. Deacon humours him, but considering the state of the rest of the town, the robot would be better off just destroying the house and starting from scratch. At least then, he could be assured of a roof that actually keeps the debris and moisture out of the place. 

Deacon eats some of his dry rations while he waits for Codsworth to return from looking over the house, and enjoys the warmth of the low sun on his back. 

It takes a bit of teamwork to get the trolley over the worst part of the footbridge that leads to the vault, but between the two of them, it’s a breeze compared to the last time Deacon did it. Alone. As they near the vault’s entrance, Codsworth gets nervous. His optics flutter about, seemingly unsure of where to look until they pass by a collection of ancient skeletons, then the Handy can’t look anywhere else.

“Somethin’ wrong, Jeeves?” Deacon asks, hoping to calm Codsworth with conversation. He’s making Deacon a little wary of him. Er, warier, anyways. 

“Well, sir, it’s just that…you said that they were all dead except for Ms. Nora.”

Deacon nods, confirming his earlier words. 

“Are they…that is, are there bodies about?”

“Like, on the ground?”

“Yes, sir.”

Deacon shakes his head. “No. They’re in their cryo-pods. No blood, no guts. Well, there are a few skeletons in a couple rooms, but Nora and her deceased husband are frozen. They probably look just as they did the moment they left for the vault. You can visit them if you’d like.”

“If that’s alright?”

“Of course, pal. Take all the time you want. I’ll take me all day tomorrow to pull apart the things I need. Maybe some of the next. We’ll see how it goes. I can show you their pods when we get down there.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Deacon doesn’t see much of Codsworth while they are down in the vault. He spends most of his time on the lower levels, pulling the large computer towers apart, while Codsworth does who knows what up on the main level. Deacon hauls crate after crate full of tech to the elevator and when he sends it up it always comes back empty, so at least he knows that the Handy is moving the crates to the trolley when he needs to. 

Codsworth doesn’t disturb Deacon’s work in the vault and that’s a little strange considering how much of a pest he was at Ticonderoga. However, there’s food waiting for him when he surfaces for a break. Deacon figures it’s around lunch time, but when he glances at the digital clock on the computer in the Overseers office, he’s surprised to find it’s a little after 6 p.m. Apparently, he has worked all the live long day away.

“Hi-ho, hi-ho,” Deacon mutters to himself as he eats the prepared soup and dried brahmin meat Codsworth left out for him. 

They leave the vault the next day and as soon as they reach the surface again, Codsworth returns to his normal, cheerful self. Deacon’s never been one to assign true sapience to the programmed personalities of Handy’s, not even to Andy, but Codsworth’s reaction in the vault and then out of it seems to suggest something more than just the programmed loyalty all Handy’s display. 

Who would’ve thought? General Atomics might have gotten it right, just this once.

Deacon would have liked to grab more stuff from the vault, but he knows the trolley and Codsworth have limits to the sheer amount of stuff he can pile on and still be expected to push back to Ticon. If he had access to a vertibird, he might actually consider riding in one if it meant he could haul everything back in one big push. As it is, he is going to have to make another trip sooner than he would like considering the way that JH seems to be growing and processing, but Deacon has set himself on this course of action and he can’t abandon it now. 

He has decided to be cautiously optimistic about JH. And since the A.I. apparently places a ‘large importance’ on Deacon’s approval, he can probably use that to his advantage. As long as he doesn’t abuse it because JH is smart and if he thinks that Deacon is trying to manipulate him (which is basically what he’s been trying to do all along, he supposes), JH’ll pull back and question everything Deacon says. 

He needs JH to trust him. 

It’s June before Deacon finally decides to bite the bullet and head to The Switchboard to talk with the bigwigs. Glory has already told them everything they need to know about what happened with The Deathclaws, but he needs to report in if only to say that he’s done picking up undercover missions. Let them assign him to package transfers, but for the foreseeable future, he’s done playing pretend. 

Well, any more than he already does, that is.

He made a second run to the vault in May and brought Jolene along with him to help repair that relationship. They had long since apologized for that heated argument they had, but things had been tense between them since. Deacon’s not sure about his future in The Railroad, and he figured it would be helpful if someone else knew where to get the computer tech JH needed if he was gone for one reason or another like he was last year. 

It helped their relationship a great deal, but it’s not like it was before. He suspects it never will be as long as JH is between them. And that makes them sound like some sort of love triangle,when really, it couldn’t get any further from the truth. 

Deacon is packing all his essential equipment into his backpack and tool belt. He’s not sure if he’ll be back to Ticon after speaking with HQ, so he needs to be prepared to be shuffled off to another safehouse. Fortunately, his essential gear is pretty limited. 

He’s decided to temporarily retire his lever-action rifle now that he’s free to use his plasma pistol again. He’s not about to give it to someone else to use, because who knows when he might need a little long range firepower, but there really isn’t anything like his plasma pistol and he is so ridiculously pleased to have it again. 

As for his baseball bat, once he finally managed to get a good look at it without the prospect of Deathclaws breathing down his neck, he realized that the faded, scratched scrawl under the trademarked stamp that declared this bat was a _George “Babe” Ruth_ Louisville Slugger -which was rare enough in of itself- was, in fact, Babe Ruth’s _real_ signature, Deacon had decided that using it to bash in heads was an atrocious used of that piece of Americana. He was tempted to bring it to Diamond City for Nick to look after (it would almost be a homecoming, of sorts, for the bat), but what was he supposed to say?

“Hey, Nick. Here’s a bat used and signed by Babe Ruth. Set it up next to the Maltese Falcon and _don’t_ let Moe get a hold of it. Maybe charge a couple of caps for people to see it, ya know if anyone out there even cares about Babe Ruth anymore.”

It’s silly, he knows. Though, if anyone would care about something belonging to a famous baseball player, Diamond City would probably be one of the few places left that would. Of course, getting the bat to Nick meant that he had to actually face the man again, so it was pretty much out of the question because he’s sort of, kinda, settled on not wanting to want Nick, and he knew that if he saw Nick again that he’d be all wanting to want Nick again. 

Look, it didn’t make any damn sense to Deacon either, okay? It was all so much better when he could just pretend that Diamond City and Valentine Detective Agency didn’t exist. 

Anyway, when he wasn’t thinking about Nick (which _never_ happened, by the way), Deacon sometimes muses on the strange occurrences that lead to him getting a hold of some rare pieces of American history. Like Lincoln’s Henry rifle, the John Wilkes Booth wanted poster, the Maltese Falcon, and now Babe Ruth’s bat. Not to mention the ones that passed through his hands, like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. He's this weird magnet for pieces of Americana. 

And like horrible death and worse case scenarios. 

Sometimes Amata would joke when she did something really stupid that she was pretty, but not so smart. “Can’t be both,” she would say with a laugh. It wasn’t true, of course. Amata was both. His luck, or lack thereof, reminded him of that in a weird way. Like the universe sort of playing into that in the sense that he couldn’t keep the people he loved alive, but hey, here’s a bone for you buddy, pieces of historical significance will randomly fall into your lap. We know you’ll appreciate them. Also, sorry for killing everyone you ever loved. Peace. 

Deacon shakes himself. He always managed to think of the weirdest shit while he was packing. He starts pulling his gear on, satisfied that he has packed everything he needs, and says aloud,

“Adieu. Adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

He has to wait until he has the rest of his gear strapped on to read JH’s reply.

Be safe, Deacon.

He gets similar sentiments from the rest of Ticon’s agents and all too soon he’s out the door and on his way to The Switchboard. 

The trip is largely uneventful and it’s nice to be doing something again. Not that he didn’t have a ton of things to do at Ticon, but his stay at Ticonderoga felt like he was just biding his time until things started moving again. Making his way to HQ feels like he’s finally started moving in the right direction again: toward Railroad trust and Nora McCoy’s release from Vault 111. Of course, as long as time keeps ticking by, that last one is coming regardless of anything he does, but Ticon isn’t the only safehouse they’ve got, and if he wants to have some undeniable sway with The Railroad, he needs to make some friends beyond its walls. 

Sure, there’s Glory and Tommy Whispers, but beyond that, he’s got Tinker Tom, who nobody listens to outside of tech and conspiracy theories, and sort of, but not really, Dez. Yeah, she pleads his case to Sly Nick when the situation warrants it, but he needs to be more than just one woman’s charity case. He needs to be The Railroad’s most influential agent, without actually being its leader. 

Of course, being its leader would makes things _so much_ easier- 

And he did _not_ just think that. 

Nope, not going anywhere near that line of thought. 

It’s a sunshiny, June afternoon when Deacon gets into the old Slocum Joe’s restaurant. He sent a message along with one of High Rise’s reports to say that he would arrive today and that could he pretty please have the code word to get inside this time? There’s no guarantee that Ms. Bell will be working the elevator today and the next person he tries to sweet talk might not be as amenable. Which is as it should be.

He makes it to the hidden elevator and chimes the intercom. At the instruction for the code phrase, Deacon replies with “Eleven.” He swears the level of creativity that’s put forth in these sorts of things is non-existent. He could have come up with at least a half a dozen better passcode answers than a simple number. It feels like the longer he’s gone, the less fun these sorts of things begin to get. 

Bell isn’t working the elevator controls today, and when Deacon gets to the main level of The Switchboard, he sees a green agent working the door. He assumes the man is anyways since Deacon hasn’t seen him before. Deacon inquires after Ms. Bell and is told that she only works the night shift. The green agent doesn’t inquire after him, and Deacon isn’t quite sure what to make of it. Like, the guy doesn’t care, not even a tiny bit, whether or not he let in an actual agent and not some clever Institute baddie?

Clearly, that’s worse case scenario, but it _could_ happen. Especially since security around here seems to be getting lax again. What, with the lack of questions. Granted, he probably shouldn’t joke about something like that because with his luck, it might actually happen.

Deacon quickly traverses the corridors of The Switchboard to get to the main office overlooking the hub. The door is slightly ajar when he approaches and Deacon peers through the crack a moment before knocks. He can see Dez perched on the edge of the desk at the far end of the room. 

There’s a call for him to enter after he raps on the metal and as he steps inside, he sees Sly Nick drop his hand from where it was curled around Desdemona’s waist. Yeah, he’d thought there was something between the two of them. 

“Need something?” Sly Nick asks as Deacon enters the room and drops his pack next to one of the dormant computer towers. 

“Deacon?” Dez asks with a smile as the heart on his vest is brought into full view now that his backpack’s strap isn’t covering it. 

“In the flesh,” Deacon confirms as he drops into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “What’s shakin’ bacon?”

Sly Nick sits back in his chair as Desdemona strides around the desk and pulls Deacon into an awkward hug. Deacon is stunned into silence; he didn’t think Dez was the touchy-feely type. 

“Glory said you survived,” Dez says, “but Amari’s report painted a grim picture of your mental health. You have no idea how relieved I am to see you for myself.”

“Yeah, well, it was kinda grim for a while,” Deacon replies, knowing that Amari wouldn’t have spared any details so there is little point in lying about it. He likes possibility that his lie could be taken as the truth, but if someone already knows that the truth, it isn’t as entertaining to try. “but I’m right as rain now. The non-radiated kind, even.”

Desdemona pulls back and settles herself on the edge of the desk again, this time on Deacon’s side so she’s between him and Sly Nicolas. 

“Good to see you’re still kickin’, Deacon,” Sly Nick says, and in the interest of not starting a petty argument, Deacon nods his thanks. “You lookin’ for another assignment?”

Deacon is a little surprised by the question, he figured old Nicolas would just send him on another mission with little more than a ‘you’re needed here,’ as an explanation. He wonders how candid Glory was about the Deathclaw mission. His status as a heavy better not have been revoked. 

“Yep. The whole reason I rolled back into town. As long as it doesn’t involve me goin’ undercover again, you just go ahead and throw somethin’ my way.”

Sly Nick and Dez share a look, then she says, “We’re willing to reassign you to Ticon as a permanent agent.”

Deacon frowns. “Don’t. Just don’t. If I wanted to spend the rest of my days at Ticon, I wouldn’t’ve returned here. So, you got a mission that you need a heavy on, or what?”

“Yeah, we do,” Sly Nick says. “Since Kilo was dissolved there’s been a lot of pressure put on Dayton and Herkimer, and with the Gunners uptick of activity in the south, we would rather not run a lot of synths through those two.”

Desdemona nods. “We’re going to try going west further into the Commonwealth and then south to the Capital, instead of straight south along I-95. So we’ve got Glory and Gerald setting up a new safehouse west of here with most of Kilo’s old agents.”

“Do you want me to go to this new safehouse?”

“No,” Sly Nick says, “We want you to go to Augusta. They’ve had a recent surge of tourists wanting to become full agents and they need someone to help train them. From there, we need the best ones sent on to Glory and Gerald, because devising a new route and checkpoints on the way to the Capital is going to be difficult. So we need someone who can pick out the most capable agents for that task. You do claim to be good at reading people, right, Deacon?”

This is…unexpected. He sort of thought he’d get a minor demotion to runner, not get a promotion to a more senior position. This is a lot more responsibility than Deacon thought they would let him have considering his dubious position in The Railroad these days. Has P.A.M. finally cleared him of suspicion? Jesus, it’s been two years, it would be about damn time. 

Dez must see the skeptical look on his face because she says, “You’re the best agent for the job. The other heavies we have don’t have the experience you do or can’t read people the way you can; Glory doesn’t have the patience for training more than one person at a time and Tommy Whispers was only willing to do it if you refused.”

“You trust me with somethin’ like this? I thought I was Public Enemy #1 around here.”

Sly Nick rolls his eyes, but it’s Dez that speaks. “We received some new information about the attack on Randolph house that finally put you and Mr. Timms in the clear.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“Originally, Timms brought forward a badly burned holotape as his proof that he wasn’t responsible for the attack on Randolph,” Desdemona begins. “He was the one that identified one of the voices on the tape as Vex, a Randolph agent, leaving instructions for the date and time of the attack, but because it was his word that is was Vex’s voice and not someone else, and that it wasn’t a sham to begin with, P.A.M. didn’t fully accept the holotape as proof of innocence. It only marginally changed her probability matrix.”

Deacon almost expects Sly Nick to break in here and say something about how he knew better than that robot, but the man is quiet. Perhaps he understands that his input right now would probably only lead to a fight. It seems the both of them are attempting to be on best behaviour today.

“Last month we received a holotape conversation from The Minutemen. It took a bit of a roundabout way to get to us, first passing through the hands of Nick Valentine who gave it to our agent in Diamond City to pass on.” She says this as if she expects Deacon to know about it. He doesn’t. Frankly, he doesn’t know how any of the Minutemen might know that Nick knows an agent of The Railroad. He’s genuinely worried that he has seriously lacked the discretion he accuses The Railroad of lacking. “On the tape was the interrogation of the captured member of The Deathclaws. A man known as Bloody Garrett.”

Deacon furrows his brow. What would Garrett know about Randolph house? Did The Deathclaws somehow sick The Institute on it? Or vise-versa?

“The Minutemen provided us with the entire interrogation, but the part that was of most interest to us was when Garrett spoke of another member of The Deathclaws called Sawbones.”

He knew that bastard was more than he appeared. 

“What do you know about him?” Sly Nick asks. 

Deacon shrugs."Not a lot. For the majority of them, members joined because of some past wrong committed against them by a synth or The Institute, or because they liked the prospect of hurting others, but Bones, I never understood why he was there. He was aloof from the gang, he didn’t appear to hold the same values, he treated its members with disdain. The only thing I really know is that he’s dangerous, perceptive, and has medical training.” Deacon looks between the two of them. “What did Garrett say?”

“You can hear it for yourself if you want,” Sly Nick says and Deacon nods. Sly Nick pulls a holotape out of the desk drawer, checks the front of it to make sure he has the right one, and then plugs the tape into the terminal that sits on his desk. “Just take a sec to fast forward to the right spot.”

There’s a whirring sound as the terminal speeds through the recorded data and Sly Nick stops a couple times checking to see how far they were into the interview, the third time they land one someone using the name ‘Bones’ and Sly Nick backs it up slightly until he’s found the right spot to start. As the tape starts playing, Desdemona moves to sit the in the chair next to Deacon. 

“—mentioned that a member known as ‘Sawbones’ wasn’t among the bodies at Jamaica Plains.”

Sly Nick leans forward as if to pause the playback and Deacon hold up a hand to stop him. He knows that voice, it’s Captain Garvey. They settle in to listen to the rest.

“I’m not surprised. Bones always was a slippery sonuvabitch,” Garrett says. “Never knew what Zac saw in him beyond being useful as a medic and liking to cut up synths.” There’s a pause. “Though, to be honest, I don’t think it ever mattered. There were a few times when I was pretty sure we pulled in someone who wasn’t a synth and Bones set to work on them all the same.”

“Because it was believed they were synths or because it didn’t matter?”

“It didn’t matter, not to him. Bones always had this air of superiority about him, like he looked down on us all, synths, humans, it didn’t matter. He did his job with ruthless efficiency and never cared about comfort or morality.”

“Or cleanliness,” Deacon adds. 

There’s another bout of silence and movement can be heard in the background. Then Garrett speaks again.

“Finding him won’t be easy. He knows how to hid in plain sight. Kind of like your friend, Dane.”

Deacon frowns and Dez squeezes his arm in solidarity. 

“Any idea where he might hide?” Garvey asks.

“I’d ask Dane. He probably has a better idea than any of us.”

“Howya figure?”

“Bones arrived out of the blue. Never went through the initiation, he was just suddenly buddy-buddy with Zac. The rest of us were kinda pissed that Zac would just let some stranger into our top ranks, and not only that but a guy who didn’t care one wit about the things that we believed in. Of course, we were full of shit, I learned that pretty quick.” There a sad, almost wistful tone to Garrett’s voice as he says that last part. Deacon figures he’s referencing Ash and her synth nature. “So we got together, Johnny, Ash, and me, to corner Zac into explaining why Bones was suddenly part of our leadership. Zac told us that Bones was well versed in synths and knew how to pick them out because he used to be a member of The Railroad.”

“What?” Deacon blurts out as Garvey says the same thing.

“That’s what Bones told Zac,” Garrett continues. “We thought it was bullshit; The Railroad doesn’t exist. Zac believed it, though, and Bones said he used to be part of a place called Randolph house. Apparently, it was some sort of waypoint for synths.”

“Was?”

“Bones claimed to have destroyed it.”

“He have proof?”

“No. He did point out where this place was supposed to have been, the old Custom’s House Tower on Boston’s coast, and it was destroyed, but there were a bunch of super mutants around the place that could’ve just as easily done it, so I never really bought it.” 

“But you do now?” Garvey asks. 

“Like most people in the ‘Wealth, I figured The Railroad was make-believe bullshit, but if that were true, then Dane would have to be one of your guys, right? But he’s obviously not. He’s a little too good at lying for one of you, a little too slick. So maybe Bones’ story was true, and The Railroad does exist, and maybe they’re tryin’ to find a rogue agent, or maybe they were just tryin’ to get rid of us. Who knows? But if you want to find Bones, I’d talk to Dane. He’s a Railroad agent, right?”

Whatever Garvey’s reply, it’s cut off by Sly Nick stopping the holotape recording. Deacon half expects Sly Nick to ask how Garrett managed to figure out Deacon was a Railroad agent, and he’s already forming a reply to that, but instead Nick says,

“What did Bones look like?”

Deacon has to pause and jump to another train of thought. “Uh. Average, I guess. Dark hair, soulless eyes. Look, whatever his appearance, if he’s half as clever as I think he his, he’ll have changed his face. So whatever my dubious memory is of him, won’t matter.”

“Do you think he’ll try and become an agent again?” Desdemona asks.

“Hey I appreciate the sudden interest in my opinion, but I have no idea what this guy wants. I don’t know what he got out of The Deathclaws, and I certainly don’t know what he got out of his time with us. We can’t even be sure that Bones was Vex.”

Sly Nick nods. “True. Whatever the case, this new information has, at the very least, corroborated Timms story and put you both in the clear. Report to Augusta as soon as you can Deacon, and watch for any suspicious recruits.”

Ah, so that’s the real reason he’s getting assigned to Augusta. Well, he can’t fault their caution, he’s glad for it actually. However, Deacon’s a bit concerned that if he ever came face to face with Bones again, he won’t actually know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deacon partially quotes _Romeo and Julliet_ when he says ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’ (2.2.197), but I just couldn’t resist making him say Gene Wilder’s version of the line in _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_ , ‘cause I love that movie and I’m feeling all nostalgic about it, and Wilder, since he died. 
> 
> So, I learned basic CSS coding and how to use skins for this chapter to make sure I got the right look for Eden’s conversations. That being said, if it doesn’t show up right on your device, please let me know. I’ll try and fix it. 
> 
> How about that Nuka-World, eh? Did anyone else get really ticked about the slaves they had everywhere and just wiped every raider out, like I did? Or did you actually do their quests? I have a save game to go back if it’s worth the trouble, but really, f*ck raiders.


	18. This is the House That Jack Built

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Would you have me_   
>  _false to my nature? Rather say I_   
>  _play the man I am._
> 
> _-Coriolanus (3.2.14)_

Deacon spends the night at the Switchboard before heading out to Augusta. It’s too late in the afternoon to trek out to Kendell Hospital and still arrive before dark, so he stops in to see Carrington and show off Codsworth's skills with a skillet. He’ll send a message to the Handy that Carrington won't be dropping by for a little late night disassembly before he sets out tomorrow. 

Carrington runs a battery of tests on Deacon physical well-being and probes for some understanding of Deacon's mental state. The former is easy to establish, but Deacon makes sure that Carrington gets suitably frustrated trying to determine his head space. It doesn't take long for the man to decide that his own mental health is more important than trying to establish Deacon's. Of course, he doesn't imagine that if Carrington was genuinely worried about his mental health that he would unleash Deacon on a bunch of raw recruits. 

Not for long anyways. 

Unfortunately, he manages to tick Carrington off enough that getting a progress update on Tinker Tom is now out of the question. Deacon plans on visiting a Tinker anyways, but having a bit of information on what to expect would have been nice. Oh well, it was worth it to rile Carrington up. Which he should maybe reconsider doing in the future as Carrington is his primary health care professional, but when has he ever done the sensible thing?

Deacon finds Tinker in his lab with P.A.M. talking a mile a minute to the room around him. Deacon's pretty sure that he isn't talking to the robot per say, P.A.M. just happens to be in the same space. Deacon perches himself on the edge of a desk and listens to Tinker jaw.

“Now, I've got this theory. See, we already know that aliens have been to Earth. That much is certain, no doubt about it, but it was all pre-war. So what if _they_ started the war?” Tinker is pacing in the middle of the room and making exaggerated motions with his hands. Sometimes he looks at P.A.M., but he mostly just looks where he's going. “Like, no one really knows who fired first, and even the data here is suspect 'cause like who's to say that the upper echelons of government would have told anyone that they’d decided to fire on the Chinese? It could have been us, it could've been them, and until I get that time machine working, no one but the guy whose finger actually struck the key _knows._

“But it’s totally possible that _they_ struck that key! The Zetans coulda brought nuclear war down on us! Just think! We're like some sort of experiment and they decided to see how a world would recover from nuclear war. And they're still watching us, even now, after all this time, just collecting their data and samples. I've heard their communications, I've heard their chittering talk, they're up there, just _watching-_ ”

“Actually, it's kinda a funny story,” Deacon interrupts, unable to resist fueling Tinker’s belief in this area because it's probably the one true thing the man believes in. 

Tinker whips around.

“Deacon!” he exclaims after a moment. It doesn't seem to matter what he looks like, Tinker always seems to know it’s him. The man is more perceptive than most think. Tinker sidles up to him, ignoring all social norms of asking the perfunctory questions about health and whatnot, and skips straight to: “What's a funny story?”

“Well…a few years ago, I came across a crashed Zetan space ship-”

“What?! Dee-man, I knew it! I just knew it! Dude, you have got tell me _everything._ Wait, wait, wait...” 

He starts scrounging for a holotape that’s either blank or has data that he doesn't care if it gets overwritten. Deacon watches in some amusement as Tinker looks at tape after tape and discards them all for one reason or another. 

“Guess you'll just have to transcribe this from memory.”

“I can't remember it all Dee! What if I die before I get it down and no one knows what I know?”

“No one _does_ know what you know, Tinker, and you won't die that soon. Wait, you are down to 12 psychotats, right?

Tinker frowns. “Carrington made me go down to 10, man; I have to sleep now!”

Deacon almost laughs at the petulant tone Tinker Tom uses. Instead, he just nods sagely. “Sleep is good.” He’s really glad to hear that Carrington has been dogging Tinker about his chem use. “So, you wanna hear the story, or what?”

“Yes!” Tinker grabs a chair and pulls them over. “Okay, okay. Go.”

Deacon proceeds to tell an edited version of finding that crashed ship and getting transported to the Zetan mothership. Getting experimented on, then free with the help of a raider, and wandering through the ship with a little pre-war girl as their guide as they devised a plan to take over the ship. Tinker's eyes are bugging out by the time Deacon gets to the part where they plan to use a space suit to walk on the outside of the ship and Tinker has abandoned his chair for motion. He peppers Deacon with questions about the Zetans and their technology; Deacon tries to answer to the best of his abilities, but it was all so foreign. 

He moves on talking about the cryo-storage facilities that the Zetans had, and how they seemed to have people from every era on earth, as well as a large collection of present day people and creatures. Tinker starts getting really excited because this confirms his theory that the Zetans are studying them and he reiterates that Earth is their experiment, but Deacon's not convinced. The only kind of planetary experiment Deacon is willing buy is if Earth is the means of finding the question whose answer is 42.

By the time Deacon reaches the end -where a motley crew of a cowboy, a samurai, an army medic, a raider, a 10-year-old girl, and he somehow manage to commandeer the mothership, and then battle another Zetan ship and destroy it-, Deacon's pretty sure that Tinker's brain has overloaded. The whole story is so far-fetched that if he were telling it to anyone else, he knows they wouldn't believe a single word of it. Even Nick would probably laugh and call bullshit, but Tinker believes _everything._ He has the innocence of a child in that respect.

Because of that, Deacon is really careful about the kind of things he tells Tinker Tom: he knows that with great power comes great responsibility. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Tinker says after Deacon's finished, “after all that, a little girl who is a fan of Captain Cosmos, is the protector of us all?”

Deacon nods. Of course, Sally's not a little girl anymore. She would be almost twenty now. He wonders how everyone is doing up there in space, looking down on all of them. 

“That explains all the crashed ships lately! I mean not just here in the Commonwealth. I talk with a dude over in Tana and he says he's walked through several crash sites. She probably shot them down!”

“With great glee, I imagine,” Deacon agrees.

“Dee-man, you've _got_ put me in touch with her. I need to get up there somehow.”

“No can do, pal. The beacon has been retracted. Didn't want any raiders or, worse, Brotherhood gettin' up there.” Tinker’s face falls and Deacon can’t help but adding, “You said you can hear the Zetan's communications, right? Try talkin' back, maybe she'll hear you.”

Deacon thinks that the communications that Tinker Tom hears are those of ships in the atmosphere and not actually in space. So he doubts that Tinker will be able to make contact, and even if he does manage it, Tinker doesn't keep track of the same things that other people do, so if Sally somehow managed to talk with him, and Deacon, as Jack, was brought up, Tinker likely won't have the same context as someone else. 

Plus, even if Tinker knew that Deacon was The Lone Wanderer, who would believe him?

It’s nice to relive a time and a memory that isn’t painful, but fun. Especially after everything he went through at Braun's hands. He feels a little wistful for those times; tshings have gotten so monumentally fucked up since then. 

Deacon leaves Tinker to his new project of trying to expand the reach of his radio signal to space, which he knows will only last until Tinker gets some other wacky idea into his head.

Deacon crashes in the transient agent beds and sets off for Augusta in the morning.

\- - - - -

Augusta is The Railroad's oldest safehouse. 

It’s located centrally in the ‘Wealth, is a hub for synth movement, and before Randolph came along, it was the most important safehouse The Railroad had. With the use of steamers now to transport synths south and north along the coast, Augusta has gone down in importance, but not prestige. It used to be The Railroads HQ before The Switchboard was discovered, and remains the fallback point should something ever happen to The Switchboard. Deacon once inquired where the fallback point would be if Augusta was also hit by The Institute and got vague answers about underground crypts in the heart of Boston -just follow the Freedom Trail.

He's still annoyed that they don’t have a solid plan beyond that. Just follow the Freedom Trail? Really? What were they? Some pre-war tourist trap? If Deacon had his way, there would be A to Z contingency plans. 

Augusta's current leader is a ghoul named Rave. One of The Railroad's only two remaining ghoul agents. There used to be more of them because who better understands persecution than a ghoul? Which is exactly the reason they don't have many left these days. When Mayor McDonough threw ghouls out of Diamond City in 2282, it created a bit of a ripple effect in the Commonwealth. Whether a settlement wants to admit it or not, they all try and emulate the success of Diamond City. 

Places like Bunker Hill and University Point also ran off their ghoul populations after the Anti-Ghoul Decree of 2282, leaving only Quincy and Goodneighbour as viable options for ghouls. Of course, at that time, Goodneighbour wasn't anyone's first, second, third, or tenth choice as a place to settle down, and if you're going to go as far south as Quincy, you might as well leave the Commonwealth altogether. The ghoul agents in The Railroad consolidated around their family and friends affected, and they either left the Commonwealth to find some distant shore of protection, or a few founded a new settlement to the northeast, away from the small-minded masses.

Rave is a young ghoul, compared to some of the ones that Deacon has met over the years and an ardent subscriber to The Children of Atom. He suspects that's how she ended up a ghoul, by hanging out in heavily irradiated areas. How she came to be in the Commonwealth, he isn’t sure, but like himself, Rave is from the Capital. Deacon wonders vaguely if Cromwell ever went to the ruins of the Whitehouse like he was always talking about. There certainly would be a lot of ‘Glow’ to bask in there.

He wanders the surrounding area of Augusta, watching for any raiders or ferals that might be around before he heads to the main entrance. The agents are pretty good about keeping the Cambridge roads clear, but the graveyard next to Kendall seems to partly responsible for attracting the creatures. 

One of Augusta's sentinels catches sight of him as he crosses the street in front of the church and Deacon has his hand up in surrender long before the warning shot pings the concrete in front of him. He stops and waits patiently for an agent to greet him, resting his hand on top of his head to keep his arms from getting tired. 

It’s the same sort of procedure most far-flung safehouses have in place for anyone not immediately recognizable. Even scheduled runs have to go through a check before they're allowed in. Sort of like The Switchboard’s elevator code, but most safehouses don't have the luxury of being an underground bunker. Even when Deacon goes to Ticonderoga with a new face, he gets the ‘don’t’ move or we’ll shoot’ treatment, though that blows over pretty fast once he starts talking.

A couple agents come out to greet him, weapons held loosely, but with purpose. 

“Whatcha want?” one asks, voice gruff. He seems like he's trying to be extra intimating, but it mostly fails because of the man's youth and his nuka-bottle glasses. 

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “What, no code phrase? You new? No, don't bother asking; the answer is Freedom Trail.”

The two agents look at one another.

“You're Deacon?” the other one asks. He doesn't seem much older than the first one, but he's significantly calmer about the whole thing. Deacon guesses he's the senior agent of the two.

“Last time I checked. Do you get the dubious honor of taking me to Rave or is Dutchman at home these days?”

“Alright, bring him in,” the senior agent says and makes a gesture to the sentry. “Dutchman's out on a package run,” he says to Deacon. “I'll take you to Rave, Mr. Dubious Honour.” The man’s tone droll. 

Deacon grins and throws an arm around the younger agent. “Come on,” he says, “let's all go down the yellow brick road together; it'll be a good learning experience.”

On the way to see Rave, as they wander through the maze-like corridors of Kendall Hospital that have sprung up because of collapsed walls and defensive choke points, Deacon learns that the young agent goes by Johnnie BeGood (which Deacon loves because it’s just rife with opportunities to mess with the kid) and the other is FDR. Deacon's pretty sure the man doesn't realize that those are the initials of a past president because when Deacon asks how the man's polio is, he gives Deacon a mildly confused look. 

In the main area of the hospital, there's a large hole that reaches down through several floors. During the initial bombardment some two-hundred-years-ago, a nuclear bomb was dropped on this hospital, but never exploded. Unlike Megaton’s atomic bomb, this one’s shielding is still intact so it's not leaking radioactive material. Thus the residents of Augusta have adopted a 'live and let live' policy much like Moira had to the bomb in Megaton. 

There was a push a while back to have someone deactivate it, but since Rave became the leader of the safehouse, that idea has been postponed indefinitely. He thinks Tommy Whispers mentioned once she had a shrine down there, but Deacon’s never seen it for himself. (Aside from a love of Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood, Tommy and he share the firm assertion that while The Children of Atom are bonkers, they’re generally nice people.) 

Deacon gets it, why they worship the atom: it's one hell of a destructive force and if you make it a god, you give people the option to try and court that god's favour. Of course, he sort of expected them to want to prevent another nuclear war when he initially met the group, not to want another one to happen. Which is why he's always wary of them: it’s only a matter of time before the zealots of the group want to bring atomic destruction again with the excuse it's Atom's will or some other such nonsense.

He's not against religion, in fact, he believes in an afterlife of some sort because he wants to see his dad, Amata, and everyone again, but Deacon likes the idea of the church in Diamond City: non-denominational. Pray to who you want, believe what you want, and find guidance. As a bonus, they aren't trying to bring the destruction of the world, which The Children of Atom can’t boast. 

Rave is on one of the highest platforms above the hole, speaking with a couple of synths about the rules they have to follow while they are being transferred between safehouses. Judging by the looks on their faces, this is the first time they’ve had occasion to see a ghoul, which he can attest to, is something that is quite shocking. And _they_ never watched Old-World horror flicks. 

Poor Gob, the man was probably more frightened by Deacon’s initial yelp of surprise than Deacon was by the sight of him. 

After she’s given them their pep talk in her gravelly voice, Rave turns from the synths to face Deacon and company.

“It’s him,” FDR says when Rave raises a tattered section of brow in question.

She gives Deacon a once over before gesturing for him to follow her.

Rave has an office of sorts in an old medical examination room in a hallway a short distance from the catwalks and platforms that have been built over the hole. He thinks that’s what it was, anyways. There isn’t a gurney left to say for sure, but it has two exits and a busted light box on the wall so he doesn’t believe it’s some ancient doctor’s office. She points to a chair for him to sit and Deacon sprawls in the thing, while Rave takes a seat behind the desk; the springs in the chair squeaking as she leans back. 

“How come every time I see you, you’ve got a new face, Deacon? Don’t you smoothskins appreciate the one you’ve got?”

“Hey, we can’t all be as good-looking as you, darlin’.”

She is quite striking, once you get past the generally ravaged look that all ghouls sport. He thinks she must have been quite beautiful as a human; she has strong cheekbones and defined jawline, as well as a fairly symmetrical face. Rave still has most of her hair as well, though Deacon wonders if she’ll lose it all, but for now, it’s dark and curly. Perhaps the most striking thing about Rave is her eyes. They glow, ever so faintly, green, as does the thin skin around her eyes. He suspects she’s slowly becoming a Glowing One, and he always finds it interesting to see how much she’s ‘progressed’ since his last visit. 

Rave smirks and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights up. She’s a bit of an oddity in terms of a Child of Atom because she likes her smokes and her drinks. The Children don’t believe in ‘polluting’ your body with things like that in case it hinders the absorption of radiation. 

Of course if they knew how radiation destroyed organisms on an atomic level by knocking electrons off atoms and causing energy to be released —weakening and changing the structure of the atom— and causing a free radial ion to bounce around for each one of these disruptions. Which, along with changing the structure of the atom, screws up every process in your body because everything is built with atoms, leading to horrible death if you don’t get an appropriate dose of RadAway (or if your semi-lucky and don’t die without RadAway, you get to become a ghoul), they’d probably be okay with smoking and drinking, since neither of those things prevents the absorption of ionizing radiation. 

He supposes that the part of the reason they worship Atom is because they don’t understand how it works, and thus the mystery fuels the belief. 

“Well, you could be better lookin’,” Rave says as she blows out a curl of smoke. “Not sure what’s with this face, but you’ve had better.”

Deacon gives her a slightly hurt look. “This is a Hollywood classic right here.”

“If I knew why that was important, I might reconsider my opinion.”

“Ouch. I’m certain that somewhere in the country Danny Kaye is rolling over in his grave over your assessment of his face.”

Rave chuckles slightly, the harsh rasp of her voice making a sound like a file scrapping along a block of wood. “So the big bosses clear you of treason one moment, and the very next they shuffle you off to my doorstep. Not sure if that’s a snub against you or me, Deacon, but let’s try and impress them so you can go back to doing whatever it is that you do…do.”

“Nobody knows what I do, Rave, least of all me, but I’m willin’ to give it that old college try.”

“Every time you come here, I am more and more certain that you’re from a different planet,” she says with a slight shake of her head. “I’m gonna assume that ‘old college try’, means something along the lines of ‘kill a hundred ferals before breakfast’?”

“Yep, though, has anyone actually done that?”

“Would it be a saying if it hadn’t happened?”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “No. I mean, people used to go to college, but who sets out in the wee hours of the morning and thinks: ‘Today’s the day; I’m gonna kill me a hundred ferals before I break my fast’.”

“Brotherhood of Steel?”

Deacon smirks. “Okay, you got me with that one.”

“They used to have a competition based on that saying back in the Capital, but I don’t think they ever limited it to just ferals.” Rave shrugs as if to say _‘They’re pricks, what can you do?’_ He’d never heard of that personally, but it wouldn’t surprise him in the least if were true. “Anyways, have you been briefed as to why you’re here?”

“Yeah, so just point me in the direction of the tourists that I get to shape into dysfunctional people but spectacular agents, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“They’re stationed outside of Augusta. We tried to keep them as far from us and Ticon as possible, while still not being too inconvenient a trek. I know you’ve been travelling all day, so go get refreshed. We’ll meet outside in an hour and I’ll take you to them.”

Deacon gets some food into him and grabs some purified water. He uses the facilities and then wanders about, checking out the changes the house went through since he was last in. Not much, but there are lots of people he doesn’t recognize. Not that there would be. Even though Augusta and Ticonderoga are the nearest safehouses The Railroad has, the two are very careful not to get too chummy with each other. It’s for the safety of both houses. 

Some of their agents meet because of patrols or package runs, but there is no direct communication between the two. They still run dead drops and messengers if things need to be said. They don’t have the safety that distance brings, so they have to be extra vigilant that they don’t get careless because it could mean the destruction of two safehouses, not just one if The Institute ever came down on one of them.

Rave is waiting for him outside, smoking and giving the sky dirty looks. Deacon takes a deep breath of air and can taste rain on the wind. They’d better get moving if they want to avoid getting wet. He hopes that it isn’t a radiation storm blowing in, even though the air doesn’t have the right tang to it for one of those, but sometimes a rain storm will become a radiation storm over the course of a day. 

As they set off to the east, Deacon asks where they’ve got the tourists set up.

“The old Cambridge Police Station. It’s defensible, about an hours walk, and has space for all of you.”

“How are you for tourists? Do we need to continue those duties until you find some more?”

Rave shakes her head. “No. A few of them recruited friends or family to replace them, and I’ve spoken with High Rise -we’ll share Ticon’s tourists until our own are replenished.”

“Cool. So any of these tourists know you?”

“Yes, I vetted them all at various points to become agents, but right now, you’re the only one they need to know.” 

Their conversation is interrupted by a few ferals that crawl out of a nearby building, but it doesn’t take long for the two of them to dispatch the group.

“I thought we cleared this area. Damn ferals, fucking everywhere these days,” Rave says with an annoyed tone.

“You do realize that you’re probably the reason they’re here, right?”

Rave gives him a disapproving look. 

“In all seriousness, Rave. You’re becoming a glowing one and ferals love those ghouls. They’re probably attracted to the radiation you give off, however slight it is.”

She frowns and looks away. “I didn’t think it was that noticeable.”

“I’m more observant than most, but you’re starting to glow, so…” He shrugs.

“Great. Like I need another reason for HQ to try and pull me from Augusta. Fuck.” Rave almost brings up a hand to touch her face but aborts the movement.

“Hey, it’s not _that_ noticeable. And why would HQ pull you?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s starting to rain; we need to get moving. It won’t bother me, but you shouldn’t be out long in this weather.”

The first few drops of rain fall around them, sparse and light, but she’s right. Rain isn’t the best thing for smoothskins like him to be caught out in. The radiation level isn’t the same as taking a swim in the Charles River, but generally, it’s best to avoid prolonged exposure. Really, in a manner similar to the prewar people who rushed to get out of the cold wet or had umbrellas to guard against the rain, you didn’t go out if it could be avoided. 

Of course, rain back then wouldn’t make you irradiated.

Deacon is thoroughly soaked by the time they reach the Cambridge Police Station. Rave keeps shooting him somewhat concerned looks, but radiation doesn’t bother him the way it does other humans and it can’t more that what the average person gets just by eating and drinking various items, so he’ll be fine. Carrington gave him a dose of RadAway at the HQ anyways because he was a pretty high on his rads, and though the doctor no longer comments on Deacon’s oddly high tolerance for radiation, that doesn’t mean that Carrington doesn’t file it away under what it probably a fairly extensive ‘Deacon’ file. 

Inside, there’s a group of seven people loitering on various chairs and desk surfaces; some are looking a little uncomfortable, others a bit annoyed, but by what, who’s to say? When they catch sight of Rave and Deacon, they collectively straighten. 

“Afternoon all, this is your training agent, Deacon, a senior heavy in our organization,” Rave begins when she’s reached the center of the group, her raspy voice carrying well in space. Deacon gives a little salute, which turns into shoving his wet hair off his forehead. “He’s one of our best and you’re lucky to have him as a guide. He’ll be leader while you train and responsible for your actions, so try not to fuck it up because he’ll decide your punishment -and no one’s accused Deacon of lacking creativity.” She gives them a toothy grin and a few look warily at him. “You’re not full agents yet, and don’t have their privileges; as such the locations of our safehouses will remain secret until you are able to be trusted with them. This will be your home until Deacon decides otherwise.” Rave turns to him. “I’ll let you take it from here, and keep in touch.”

She leaves then, after wishing the group good luck, letting a burst of cool rain water as she goes out the door. When she’s gone, Deacon turns back to the group.

“So, I’m gonna assume that you have all been briefed on some of our most basic rules, which means you know enough to not give out your real names. As mentioned, my codename is Deacon.” He pulls a chair over from a desk and straddles it, bracing his arms along the back. The rest of the group takes that as a sign they can sit as well. “Now, tourists don’t have official codenames -though, we as agents sometimes give you ones that we use internally so in our reports you aren’t called Tourist 123, or Tourist 34, or Tourist 98, etc.

“Your first step into this brave new world of intrigue and secrecy is to pick out a codename to go by. Whatever you want. Pick wisely, though, you’ll be stuck with it forever.” Deacon grins. 

There’s a moment of silence, then a hand goes timidly up. Deacon smiles and a bit and nods for the woman to speak. 

“Is there a time limit?” her voice is strong, despite her clear reluctance to speak.

“Nope. You could theoretically never take a codename, but we would all just call you So-And-So, or What’s-Her-Face, or something else that you probably wouldn’t like.”

“Could it be something vaguely inappropriate?” asks another woman, younger than the first with a smirk on her face. She clearly already has something picked out. 

Deacon shrugs. “Well, as long as you don’t mind being nicknamed other euphemisms, ‘cause we’re all about ten years old when it comes to that.”

Another hand goes up, and Deacon looks to the man, freezing slightly as he recognizes him. Deacon racks his brain trying to remember which one of two former Deathclaws he is: Alan or Robin. He doesn’t have a backward armband to help him differentiate between the two. Deacon nods for the man to speak, hoping that might help him.

“I’d like to go by Indy,” the man says. 

“Okay, sounds good. Fair warning, though,” Deacon adds, addressing the group, “I am crap at names, so expect to have to remind me of it often. Anyone else got one?”

“Yeah, Naughty Nancy,” the woman from before says, a smirk still curling her mouth.

There’s a smattering of laughter and the name picking goes on.

A burly man, who looks like he’s spent most of his life killing things for caps, decides to go by Bullet. Another man, looking decidedly more scholarly, says he’s Lacrimosa -Deacon thinks that’s Latin, but what it means he’s not sure. Then, there’s the young woman who was unsure of the timeframe, she chooses Olivia. There’s one person in the group whose gender isn’t immediately distinguishable and they decide on Magpie. Lastly, there’s a man quieter than all the rest and looking somewhat bored by the proceedings, he says he’ll go by Mender.

With the rain falling outside, there isn’t much to be done today, so with their introductions done they start setting up the Police Station as best they can for long term residency. Some things have been brought by the group, others will have to be scavenged from the surrounding area, but they have enough food to go around and places to sleep, so for now, it’ll do. Deacon pulls out his cards, a checker’s board is found in one of the evidence lock ups (and Deacon is dying to know the story behind that, so he’ll have to peruse the case files when he gets a chance), and they spend the rest of the day playing games and getting to know one another better. 

\- - - - -

The next day the rain has cleared and Deacon leads the group in a scavenger hunt for better, long-term beds, cooking supplies, etc., really anything that will help make their stay in the police station more comfortable. It's a good team-building exercise for them, learning to rely on one and another, to share, and to know that the people around you have your back. It also helps Deacon assess their level of ‘Waster’. He uses a scale based on himself because he has been at both ends: completely incompetent and now waste hardened. 

Of course, unless someone is right from the vault, completely incompetent applies to just about no one. You have to have a pretty lucky existence to have gone this long in life and not know anything about what it means to survive in the Wasteland. Whether that's shooting creature and/or people, or finding water and food sources. Most people fall somewhere in the range of ‘major settlement dweller’ to ‘farm kid’, with farm kids having more experience with the hardships that the Wastes offer.

Deacon's job here is to help bring these tourists up to the level of an average agent. Which isn't ‘hardened merc’, that's more the heavy’s purview and if an agent is that skilled or has the potential, then they usually shadow a heavy for a while to learn the ins and outs. No, an average agent is somewhere around a caravanner. They know how to survive, they can handle a gun, and know the Wastes, but aren't capable of sustained battle or the harder missions that heavies take on -which usually means direct engagement with agents of The Institute, Gunners, or massive gangs of raiders. 

Deacon never had this sort of training when he entered The Railroad, he was already more capable than most agents, and he's only gotten better. It's why he moved through the ranks so quickly, he was good at his job and capable of handling anything thrown his way. High Rise told him a bit about the training when he was first at Ticon, mostly as a 'you're lucky you didn't have to go through this...'. 

Synths themselves are a little different since they usually end up right in the thick of it and if they stay, they get training on the fly. However, for those individuals that come from the outside in, there are a few more hoops to jump through. Hoops Deacon now has to direct this group of people through, even though he's never had to do it himself.

Fun times.

They find plenty of ferals to go along with their scavenged goods, so there some instruction how to best dispatch the creatures. Ferals like to lunge, so space is ideal when fighting. Though, since they like to congregate in tight places, that often goes out the window. Thus you have to be nimble, avoid their claws whenever possible because they tend to infect and scar badly and go for headshots –which is the best way to take down any living creature. Also, if ferals get too close, remember the butt of your gun is a weapon, so are your feet and hands.

By the end of the day, the have a fairly impressive haul and plenty of aching muscles and a few scratches to be looked at. Fortunately for them, Mender is not just his code name, but also a profession, so they get their various injuries looked at. Deacon watches with half an eye, as he talks with Olivia and Magpie about their weapons, because it seems that there's something familiar about his brisk manner. Maybe it's just that pattern of doctors with bad attitudes, but maybe not. 

Deacon’s here to watch the tourists and watch he will. There's nothing concrete about this feeling, and it's entirely possible his paranoia is making an appearance, but in this job you're either paranoid or dead, and Deacon's not dead.

Yet, anyways.

That night, when the tourists are asleep in their beds like little Whos in Whoville, and Deacon is still wired from the day (ferals are stressful, leading this group is even more stressful, and because of that he's having to fall back on The Lone Wanderer's knowledge of leadership and training; he's worried about what that means for him now as it may just make The Wanderer bolder, and all that should make him tired, but he’s sort of beyond sleep right now), he sits at the still active evidence terminal picking away at the security so he can find more information on the Eddie Winter holotapes. 

Deacon hit up the South Boston Police Station and grabbed the tape from there on his way to Goodneighbour from Quincy, so that makes two he now has in his possession. From what he has been able to gather, there are several on the coast and a couple (in the complete opposite direction) west, outside of Boston. He might be able to swing going either way in the guise of a long-term training exercise in survival, but probably not both. However the new safehouse is west, so he might have occasion to travel that way for a few different reasons. 

His best bet is to try for the coast, but not for a while yet. These tourists aren’t ready for that kind of long-term survival exercise. They need to work on weapons handling first and foremost, and if they’re going to do that, Deacon needs his beauty sleep. He won’t be any good to anyone if he’s falling asleep behind his sunglasses and not watching what they’re doing. 

Knight Captain Colvin of Lyon’s Pride told him once to never train alone because that would only entrench your bad habits. Now it’s his responsibility to be present and _aware_ of what they’re doing to prevent those bad habits.

“Clearing out ferals is a pretty regular occurrence for agents,” Deacon begins the next morning when they’re down in the police station’s firing range, “but if you can’t shoot straight or accurately, those nasty cannibals will chew through your arm, leg, neck, -insert body part here-, before you can reload to try again. And if you can’t kill a feral in two bullets or less, you’ll never survive against raiders. As chem’d up as the are, they usually have more intelligence.”

“Don’t know about that,” Indy says, “Anyone’s that I’ve come across couldn’t find their own asses with both hands.”

There’s laughter.

“True, but the thing with raiders is, there’s often another one right behind them to offer assistance in findin’ said ass or killin’ someone in their territory. They like to surround and ambush, so we need to improve accuracy. If for no other reason than bullets cost caps, caps that could be used to feed you, or buy better armour, or lodgings in a place your passin’ through on an assignment.” Deacon claps his hands together, the noise bouncing off the concrete walls. “Now, two at a time, let’s begin.”

A few of the tourists are better shots than the others. 

Bullet, obviously, is probably the best shot in the place save for Deacon himself. He carries a hunting rifle that has very likely killed many creatures and people before, so he ends up helping Deacon point out places for the rest of the tourists to improve their accuracy. The man is a natural leader, and the rest of the group look to him for guidance when Deacon isn’t around. Bullet, thankfully, has enough intelligence and deference to talk with Deacon about these instances. 

Mender is second in weapons handling, but he has a sort of bored and casual manner when it comes to wielding a gun and the idea of killing that belies his profession as a medico. 

Most doctor/medics Deacon’s met, don’t like the Wasteland reality that sometimes you have to kill people, and they generally avoid it whenever possible. Whether that’s like Sun, living in a large settlement with guards, or like Carrington, in an organization where he can focus on saving lives not harming them, or like his dad, avoiding a fight for 19 years in the safety of a vault, they usually take that “Do no harm,” spiel pretty seriously. 

Of course, Mender might just be the exception. It’s possible he has worked with the Gunners, or the Brotherhood, or some other group that expected him to fight as well as heal, which could be very useful to The Railroad.

Indy favours close combat, whether it’s a knife, a tire iron, or his fists. That’s given Deacon enough information to decide that this is Robin he’s dealing with and not Alan. If he remembers correctly, Alan once said that he’d gotten in a bar fight in New York and suffered a broken nose because he was shit at hand-to-hand combat -Alan had a modified 10mm pistol that was his pride and joy. Robin, on the other hand, favoured a tire iron until Deacon showed him how to throw a knife. 

Deacon would like to think that he managed to change the outlook of one of the members of The Deathclaws to the degree that they would want to help synths and not kill them, but he’s not naïve enough to believed it without proof. He wants Indy to be here because he’s genuinely changed his mind, but Deacon knows that the likelihood of that is small. He’s keeping an eye of Indy until he gives himself away in one way or another.

Magpie has a small, silenced handgun that she (Deacon asked which pronouns she preferred, though her gender is as ambiguous to him as ever) uses if the need arises. She’s like him and prefers her scaving to be done with stealth rather than with a frontal assault. He thinks she probably made her caps by stealing things from places and people, but he’s not here to judge past actions, just to get them trained for future ones. Magpie doesn’t use a knife, but Deacon is going to talk to her about adding one because even silenced, a pistol still makes noise, and a knife is far cheaper to upkeep.

Naughty Nancy has a shotgun she wields with the careless manner that such a ballistic spread seems to dictate. She couldn't care less about targets or accuracy, just that a shotgun is the be-all and end-all of an argument. Even with stimpaks, a shotgun blast is hard to come back from if it hits you square, and the simple act of pumping a shotgun is a threat in of itself. It does something to the primitive part of the brain that says “Get the hell out of here!” which is great since it saves on ammunition.

Nancy was also the only one that Deacon didn't have to tell to pick up her spent casings (even Bullet was more concerned about searching drawers for long lost bottlecaps than picking up his spent .308s). Nancy doesn't reload her own shells, but the simple act of taking spent casings and shells into a weapons supplier gets you a discount on the purchase of new rounds. Which is what Deacon recommends they all do. He doesn't know the ins and outs of reloading shells either because he doesn't need to; people like Arturo or KL-E-0 have built their business on doing it for you.

“You can't just pay them to play dead,” Deacon says to Olivia and Lacrimosa, a week into the groups training. He keeps his tone light to hide the slight frustration he's beginning to feel. “Believe me, I've tried.”

Out of the group, these two are the worst shots, but to be fair, half the problem is the shitty pipe pistols they both have.

Olivia is more frustrated by the prospect of her lack of improvement than Lacrimosa, who seems to be taking a methodical approach to finding the solution to better marksmanship. Deacon has observed Olivia, and he believes that she doesn't care for the violence that comes with a gun. Rather, her real frustration is being perceived as a failure. Thing is, some people just aren't meant to fight with a gun, or even with violence. Fighting the good fight doesn't mean that you have to get blood on your hands, it can be as simple as standing up for what's right, and Olivia has got that down pat.

He'll have a word with her later, way from the group, about other ways to contribute that may not include a gun. While it is important that she be able to defend herself, she will likely be spending most of her time with The Railroad in a group and there are other things she can do. Maybe Mender can teach her a few things about battlefield medicine, if she takes to that perhaps Carrington can apprentice her. Of course, he shouldn't be making plans for her without her input, so he'll stop thinking about it for now.

Still, he's going to try and get better guns for them both, because sometimes you just have to kill or be killed. They might need to make a field trip to Bunker Hill. 

Unfortunately for Lacrimosa, all the methodical planning in the world really isn't going to help him improve. The man barely seems to like touching a gun, much less firing one, and he flinches constantly when they _are_ fired. Deacon admires his dogged determination to get it right, despite his apparent distaste for the weapon. 

Olivia and Lacrimosa seemed to have bonded over their shared performance on the range, however, unlike Olivia who dislikes violence in general, Lacrimosa has taken to melee combat with gusto. Perhaps because it requires more strategy than just firing into a crowd of ferals or raiders. Naturally, groups like the Gunners and Institute synths, require strategy to defeat, but if they aren't going to be heavies, then they won't likely have cause to use it. 

Besides, Deacon's not here to train heavies, and even caravanners have guards.

August rolls around hot and humid and the air in the police station is almost unbearable. The group spends a lot of time in the basement’s firing range soaking up the cool air when they're not out on training missions. Deacon takes them out to buildings around Cambridge to practice their survival skills. It'll take a bit of time before Deacon is confident that they can handle a long-term one out on the coast (a month or more and probably in the winter for maximum effect), but they've worked up to a week away from the safety and stores of food at the police station and he’s proud of that.

The group’s cohesion is coming along nicely. They work well together, have stopped trying to horde things just for themselves, enjoy sitting around a campfire cooking food, and volunteer for watch shifts instead of Deacon simply assigning them. All in all, he's pretty impressed with their progress and he feels like they’re ready to take on a Railroad agent mission to get a feel for the sort of things they will be doing once they get assigned to a safehouse. Not as a huge group, mind you, that's a little too inconspicuous, but there have to be a few different missions Deacon could split them up on.

Which is why he heads out for Augusta one morning, leaving Bullet and Magpie in charge of the group, to check out what Rave might have on her plate for a few agents in training. 

Deacon hasn’t been back to Augusta since he left for the Cambridge Police Station, and no agents have visited him. He has left a couple status updates in a dead drop north of the station to keep Rave, and subsequently, HQ apprised of his progress on training and his thoughts on a few of the promising agents-to-be. Any reservations about the specific members of the group, he’s kept to himself, however. Deacon isn’t sure how it’s all going to come together or fall apart right now, and he doesn’t want to jump the gun on suspicions and speculation until he has a better idea of the people in question. 

He takes a roundabout way to get to Kendall Hospital and stops fairly frequently to check for any signs of being followed. Only when he’s confident that he’s alone, does Deacon approach Augusta. He gets a much nicer greeting this time around and Johnnie BeGood meets him outside of the doors to Augusta to confirm the sentry’s ID. Which has to be fairly easy considering his red hair and his vest with its red heart. He’s pretty identifiable these days, and it’s both unnerving and oddly comforting.

Johnnie lets Deacon in and leaves him to find his own way to Rave. He meets a few agents on the catwalks and they direct him to Rave’s office, which was where he was heading anyways, but it's good to know he won’t have to wander aimlessly around. He knocks on her door, hears a gruff: “Enter,” and finds Rave typing away at her computer, cigarette dangling out of her mouth. Deacon lays claim to one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“I was hoping to see you,” Rave says as her eyes flick away from the screen. “Just give me a moment.”

“Sure,” Deacon replies and taps out the beat to the _‘Washington Post’_ on his thigh while he waits.

When she’s done, Rave turns her full attention on him. “So, what do you need?”

“Me? I thought you wanted to see me.”

There’s a moment of confusion that flickers over her face like she’s trying to figure out if she sent for him and forgot about it. Then she says, “Stop fucking around, Deacon.”

He laughs. “Never. I’m here ‘cause I think those tourists of yours are ready for somethin’ a little more difficult than weapons accuracy and survival trainin’.”

“Good, ‘cause I was about to ask after that very thing. High Rise and I have a few package runs on the docket, and since you’re here I don’t have to send a runner for you.”

“How serendipitous. What are we talkin’ here? ‘Cause we need something without the threat of Courser interceptions or anything.”

“You know as well as I that you can’t predict those fuckers, but as runs go, these shouldn’t be too strenuous. Good for a trainee.”

‘Easy’, ‘simple’, ‘cakewalk’, these are words that The Railroad avoids when talking about any mission, lest it ends up jinxing the whole thing. 

“How many you got?”

Rave leans back in her chair. “Three. Two out of Augusta and one from Ticon. High Rise has assigned Parade to lead their run; a package run to Goodneighbour to see the Dr. Amari. FDR will lead one of ours; a package whose memory has already been altered and now needs to leave the ‘Wealth. He thinks himself a merc, so FDR and a couple of your trainees will lead him to Allen and he’ll help them with picking the best route out of the ‘Wealth. For a price, of course.”

That’s a merc for you.

Deacon hums. “That’s a handy set of memories to have.”

“Yeah, we lucked out with that one.”

“Allen is the new safehouse?”

Rave nods. “Did you not get briefed?”

“Nope and I didn’t ask. Figured it’d come up sooner or later. So what’s the last run?”

“I want you to lead a package transfer to Randolph. This one is going north to Noscotia, I think. He decided against a mind wipe and just wants to get out of the ‘Wealth as fast as possible. Who can blame him?” She shrugs and blows out a curl of smoke. “You know your people best, Deacon, and who’s best suited for what, so I’ll let you pick agent assignments.”

Deacon frowns slightly. “Uh, teeny-tiny problem with your plan here, Rave, I don’t actually know where Randolph is set up these days.”

“Ah. Another thing you didn’t get briefed on?”

“Pretty much, but hey, can you really blame them?”

Rave gives a ‘Yeah, I suppose not,’ shrug and pulls out a beat-up map of the Boston area. She spreads it over the surface of her desk and Deacon leans forward to get a good look at it. The map’s folds are torn and frayed in some places, there are chunks missing out of the corners and sides, and plenty of coffee and Nuka Cola stains gracing its surface that have caused some of the ink amendments on the map (showing areas that are impassable or dangerous) to blur. In the one corner, Deacon can still see most of the map’s title: **-ston, Mass. City Map 2076**

Rave points to a square on the map, near the coast. “Do you know the Harbourmaster Hotel?” she asks. 

“Vaguely.”

“Can you find it in the dark?”

“Maybe.”

“ _Deacon._ ”

“What? Water’s all irradiated and stuff. I don’t venture near the coast unless I have to. Look, it’s near 35 Court, right? Sort of?”

“Harbourmaster Hotel isn’t Randolph. If you can’t find that, you’ll have a hard time finding Randolph’s new safehouse.” Rave sighs. “Should I send Blackbird with you?”

“No, no.” Deacon waves her off. “Just point out a few other landmarks, and I’ll be okay. The package won’t know I’m lost and maybe someone else knows the coast.”

“Okay, how about this: you know where 35 Court is, so you must also know where Postal Square is.”

“Unfortunately.”

Rave looks apologetic. “Right, forgot about that. Look, here’s what you should do, go to Postal Square and then head east over to the Shamrock Taphouse-” she traces the path through the streets with a finger. “-from there, keep going east to the boardwalk and follow it south along the coast. You’ll see an old restaurant, further out on the water than any other building, with a green, pyramid-like peak.”

Deacon studies the map for a moment then says, “Postal Square, then east to the Shamrock Taphouse, east to the coast, and then south to the green pyramid. 10-4 dubber rucky.”

“What?”

“Roger, affirmative, gotcha, can do.” Deacon mimes shooting pistols with his hands. 

Rave just shakes her head and moves on. “I’ll send a dead drop with the locations and dates of the meetups tomorrow, and you can pass on whatever intel you think is relevant.”

“Is that a ‘Get the hell out?’” Deacon asks with a grin.

“No, this is: Fuck off out of here, Deacon.” 

He stands and bows with a flourish, before heading out of the room. Rave’s low laughter follows him out.

\- - - - -

Deacon decides on this arrangement:

Naughty Nancy and Lacrimosa with Parade.

Bullet and Mender with FDR.

Olivia, Magpie, and Indy with him.

He thinks this best suits their capabilities and what the runs need from the agents. 

Bullet and Mender are to meet up with FDR in College Square near dawn. Initially, Deacon was a bit hesitant to send two of his best marksmen with FDR, but he decided that since they have the furthest to go and have to deal with more possibilities of dangers, that FDR would be better served to not have to spend extra time babysitting less capable agents. That needs to be Deacon’s purview, they’re his responsibility after all. Also, he doesn’t know how capable FDR is himself, and while he doesn’t expect Rave to send someone on a run that they couldn’t handle, he has no frame of reference for the man’s capabilities. The fewer chances for dead agents, the better.

He knew right away that he should send Naughty Nancy to Parade because the two of them will get along like a house on fire. They think and view the world similarly and Nancy will get a lot out of Parade just by virtue of a shared sense of humour. Lacrimosa is sent to balance out their ranged combat with his melee.

Indy and Deacon have taught him a lot about fighting and he seems eager to put it to the test. Which is nice to see, because the guy was pretty down when he first arrived to train and Deacon is glad to see him beginning to smile. 

The two of them are set to meet Parade outside the Greenetech Genetics building after dark. 

So that leaves the last three trainees for him. 

Olivia is especially stressed out by the idea of going on a real, live run, and really worried about failing or screwing something up. He wants to show her that she’s as capable as any of them; she simply requires more guidance that some of the others -which he is glad to give, Deacon’s always looking to pass on that kindness that Moira did for him. 

Magpie is exceptional at stealth and sneaking around. He hopes that between the two of them, they’ll be able to lead by example when it comes to a typical run. Bullet and Nancy want to engage every enemy, but Magpie knows the value of ‘live and let live’. Raider can have seemingly unending numbers if you stumble into a nest, and all it takes is two ghouls throwing themselves at you for you to become overwhelmed. Retreat sometimes _is_ the better part of valour, and he doesn’t need Olivia stressed out, any more than she already is, by a massive gun battle. 

As for Indy…well, Deacon is a little uneasy about having him so close, but Parade doesn’t need more than two agents, and FDR and his merc synth have enough fire power with Bullet and Mender. In teaching Lacrimosa how to fight and handle a melee weapon, Deacon is worried about having given away more than he should to Indy about their shared past. Robin doesn’t need to know he’s dealing with Dane; that Dane is Deacon. Bad enough that Bloody Garrett figured out he was with The Railroad, he doesn’t need Robin finding out too. 

While they are technically on the same side, Deacon still isn’t sure what Indy’s endgame is in joining The Railroad when he was pretty anti-synth not too long ago. At the same time, he can’t have that burden of betrayal on anyone but himself and Deacon won’t allow a group of agents to die because he was uncomfortable about an old acquaintance finding out he likes to lie and change his face.

Deacon’s group of four meet Johnnie BeGood outside the old church a couple blocks from Kendall Hospital around sunset. With all of their different leave times, it has prevented anyone from getting more information than necessary about what each run is about, especially since Parade’s group and his will be going in the same direction for the most part. Johnnie’s waiting with their package; a young man looking about as lost and overwhelmed as any Vaultie Deacon has ever seen and he empathizes immensely.

Sane people don’t travel after dark and even Deacon tries to avoid nighttime excursions if he can help it, but runs are almost exclusively set after dark. It just makes it easier to hide and avoid raiders, muties, or even a caravan that might be traveling from settlement to settlement. All the trainees were hesitant about traveling through the dark, though Bullet and Mender ended up with a daylight run to help with the synth’s belief that he’s a merc. Deacon told them they were right to be nervous and to be on-guard because shit can happen, but that they had to trust themselves, their training, and the agents with them to see them through it. 

Deacon wishes he had that confidence now. 

There’s something out there in the dark streets that's stalking them, Deacon can feel the spidery sensation of being watched. By what, he doesn’t know, but he hopes that it’s a raider or a persistent feral and not something else. _Something worse._ They picked it up shortly after they passed over the Charles River, so Deacon’s not 100% sure it isn’t some flashback trauma to the last two times he was on a package run and that he’s just running so high on adrenaline and nerves that he is starting to imagine things.

That would be ideal because right at this moment he can’t even muster the courage to whistle and that is his distraction and calming mechanism.

The sound of their boots crunching through the rubble and debris on the ground seems loud in the dark as they pick their way down the streets. There are a few lights every once and while from streetlights that still miraculously work, or a store front’s flickering neon sign, but for the most part, it’s the bright light of the moon that guides them. Even still, Deacon wishes Nick was around for his eyesight and just the simple comfort of his presence. 

They avoid Goodneighbour as best they can without travelling through The Common because don’t need to add The Swan to their list of worries right now. Magpie spots a raider sentry before they come to Postal Square and the group takes cover. Deacon lets her take care of the sentry since she saw him and tells her to make a quick recon of the area ahead, so they know if its possible to go around or if they’ll have to fight any remaining raiders. 

While Magpie is gone, the rest of them huddle around their package (“R14,” he told them in a quiet voice as they set out), Indy and Deacon are keeping an eye out for anything that might be coming up the street behind them, while Olivia talks in hushed tones to R14. She’s trying to comfort and calm him, and frankly, she’s doing a hell of a job. Deacon almost wishes she would talk to him like that because he could use a little reassurance right now.

It doesn’t take long for Magpie to return; she materializes out of the dark a little way from the group so she doesn’t scare them into firing on her. 

“Five,” she says as she slides up to Deacon. “Killed three others that were sleeping, but the rest are fucked up on chems and sprawled around a fire. We could take them.”

“No one else? No other signs of camp?” Deacon asks.

“No.”

Deacon thinks about it for a moment. Normally, he would just try and avoid them, it’s in their best interest to leave as little evidence as possible they pass through. If the raiders are chem’d up, that works in their favour either way. Thing is, Deacon doesn’t know the area south of Postal Square very well and heading north to 35 Court and subsequently, the Custom House tower will lead them into mutant trouble, so his options for finding an alternate route is limited by his knowledge of the area -another reason he wishes for Nick. 

Through the raiders, they must go. 

“Okay, we’ll take them out. Let’s move.”

Deacon directs Olivia and R14 to wait near the entrance to the square while he, Indy and Magpie get the jump on the raiders. Olivia has a 10mm pistol that Deacon scrounged from one of the police station’s safes, and her accuracy has much improved with the better weapon, but she still isn’t a fan of shooting and that probably goes double for killing someone. He knows she will defend R14 should it come to that, but he doesn’t need another agent getting all weird on this mission.

The five raiders and their fire that Magpie mentioned are near the square’s fountain; they’re using the old bus stop as a shelter of sorts and a seat for a couple raiders, as they talk and laugh around the fire. Magpie sneaks around the far side of the fountain as Deacon and Indy take their respective positions, to the side and front. 

Deacon’s bait.

“Excuse me!” Deacon says in a voice that’s just below a yell. The raiders jump and scramble for their guns. Deacon raises his hands and puts on a smile. “Sorry to scare you fine folks, but I’m _really_ lost. Like Christopher Columbus on his way to India lost, and I just need someone to point me in the direction of Diamond City.”

Suddenly, their attitudes change; they think they’ve found easy prey. 

One of them stands, throwing his hands out in a gesture of welcome. “Sorry to hear that, friend. Pretty sure Vickie here has a map of the area. Come on over and we’ll show you the way.”

“Oh, that would be so great, you have no idea,” Deacon replies and starts walking over.

Suddenly the one who spoke jerks forward and then falls to the ground. There’s a commotion around the fire, and Deacon draws his plasma pistol, taking out another two raiders in rapid sequence as Indy appears out of the gloom and jumps another raider, his knife blade flashing in the firelight. The last one left swings her gun around, aiming at Indy, but she goes down as both Magpie and Deacon fire at her. Deacon whistles for Olivia and R14 to join them, and Magpie and Indy start going through the pocket of the raiders, looking for anything of value. 

It’s a time-honoured tradition after all. 

Deacon steps up to the fire and glances down at the raider who initially spoke to him. There’s a glossy sheen of blood oozing out of a wound in the back of his head. 

“Nice shot,” he says to Magpie and she grins. 

“Thanks. You’re a damn fine distraction. We could rob all kinds of places together.”

“F.Y.I., pretty handy with a bobby pin too.”

She laughs. “I know.”

He heads off Olivia and R14 as they come over, keeping them a bit of a distance from the bodies of the raiders. Deacon doubts R14 has ever had occasion to see a corpse and he needs Olivia’s support right now -poor kid practically has a death grip on her hand. Whenever R14 eyes start to drift toward the fire, Deacon shifts so he’s standing in the way and gives him a sympathetic smile. This is another reason Deacon prefers to avoid killing raiders when possible: an escaped synth really doesn’t need any more trauma. 

Of course, you usually don’t have a choice; they attack you and you kill the chem’d up loonies while trying not to get overwhelmed by their ferocity. 

Once everything that could be looted is, the group heads out of Postal Square and east toward The Shamrock Taphouse. Thankfully, Deacon’s memory for directions is exceedingly better than his memory for names because he hardly hesitates in shifting through the streets that will take them to the bar. He still hasn’t lost that sensation of being watched, however, and his hand won’t let him put his plasma pistol back in its holster. Instead, preferring to clutch it tightly in anticipation of having to use it again.

If anyone notices this, it goes unmentioned. 

They exit a street made narrow and difficult to traverse by the rubble of a collapsed building, and onto the street just across from The Shamrock Taphouse. As they cross toward the building, Deacon catches the scent of ozone on the air and worries for a brief moment that a radiation storm is incoming. Then, a voice speaks to them from the shadows of the taphouse’s doorway, scaring the group.

“R14, I thought we talked about this.”

Both Deacon and R14 freeze. It’s Dr. Zimmer. 

“You’re just confused, and you’re not the first. We know what’s wrong.”

Magpie, Indy, and Olivia shift themselves so they’re surrounding R14. Deacon’s grip on his pistol tightens even further. If Zimmer is here, then A3-21 isn’t far behind. He must have been the one behind them all this time. _Fuck._

Zimmer descends the short staircase leading to the doors of the taphouse and onto the sidewalk. “Wasn’t I good to you? Weren’t you the envy of all the others? And this is how you repay that kindness?”

R14 is trembling. Olivia wraps and arm around his shoulders and Deacon looks around for A3-21. Magpie and Indy’s eyes are glued to Zimmer, hands on their weapons, but they’re unsure how to proceed. After all, Zimmer looks like he’s unarmed, but the whole situation doesn’t feel right. And it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Zimmer changes tactics when R14 doesn’t answer. “Don’t make me wipe you R14. You’ve seen what that looks like, you know how it changes the androids, but if you come back with me now, you can keep all your memories.”

Deacon feels his anger rising and takes his eyes off their surroundings. “At what price? Will you keep him locked in a little cell while you pull apart the ‘broken’ parts of him? Torture him with the memory of more while you _destroy_ everything that he is?”

“I realize that this is hard for you Railroad types to understand,” Zimmer condescends as he steps off the curb and onto the pavement, ever moving forward. “but regardless of what R14 looks or sounds like, he’s a _machine._ A malfunctioning one, as broken implies there isn’t a fix, but all technology can be repaired.”

“Self-determination isn’t a malfunction,” Deacon snarls.

Zimmer stops. “ _What?_ What did you say?”

“It sure looks like you’ve got that rebellion on your hands, Zimmer. How many synths ‘wandered’ off in the last year? Hmm? Big wigs must be gettin’ a little pissed off that the Retention Bureau isn’t doin’ its job.”

“ _You._ ”

“Me,” Deacon agrees.

“I warned you what would happen if you choose The Railroad-”

“And I slit the throat of the last Courser I met, so don’t expect to get out of this one alive either.”

There’s a fritzing light on the building across the street from the taphouse, and in its unsteady light Deacon can see Zimmer scowl.

“A3,” he says. “ _Kill him._ ”

There’s a shimmering movement of air that appears in front of Zimmer and Deacon shoves both R14 and Olivia away from him. If he’s going to be the main target, it should give them an opportunity to get out of the immediate fray. Blue laser fire catches him along one arm that leaves a scorch mark across his skin and sets part of his shirt on fire. Deacon darts for cover behind an ancient Corvega as he smacks the fire out on his shirt, his arm stinging with every hit. 

Indy drags Olivia and R14 to cover in the opposite direction, and Magpie disappears under a stealth cloak. They haven’t gone over Courser tactics yet in training, other than to say that the best course of action is to just _run the fuck away_ from one. 

He knows that R14 was likely unable to mention that maybe the head of The Institute’s Retention Bureau might make a personal appearance to reclaim him, but Deacon’s still pissed about the lack of warning. He almost wishes he had killed Zimmer all those years ago, but who know what crazy S.O.B. would have taken his place. Better the devil you know, etcetera, etcetera. 

Deacon tries to calm his racing heart and eases his breathing so he can hear the crunch of A3’s boots on the ground. There’s a noise to his left and Deacon twists on the balls of his feet, bracing one knee on the ground as he comes to a stop. He fires a couple rapid shots at the area near the rear end of the car and blue laser fire is immediately returned. 

The plasma of his shots eats through a section of A3’s coat, near his hip, and it overrides the capabilities of the stealth field for a moment before it recovers and the dissolving coat disappears again. Unfortunately, laser fire has burnt two new holes in Deacon’s vest, but the steel plates protect him from any further damage. 

Deacon hauls himself back to his feet and rushes the shimmering blob of A3, hoping to prevent him from shooting at Deacon again. He gets nothing by an armful of air as the Courser sidesteps him, but Deacon twists mid-motion and fires at the shimmer, clipping A3’s arm in the process. 

As Deacon skids to a halt, he trips over a large section of rubble, banging his shins, and hits the ground hard, scraping his knuckles on the hand that’s holding his plasma pistol. He curses and scrambles upright only to get a boot planted square in his back and he’s kicked back to the ground, sliding forward several feet from the force. He loses his grip on his pistol and it skids across the ground in front of him.

Deacon doesn’t spare a moment trying to find A3’s shimmer, just focuses on getting his breath back and pulling his feet under himself again because if he stops moving, he’ll die. He coughs as his boots slide against the small, gravel-like chunks of concrete and he dives for his plasma pistol. As his hand closes around the grip, A3’s boot comes down hard on his wrist with a sickening _crunch._ Deacon howls. 

Above him, A3 flickers into sight as his stealth field vanishes. Deacon takes several, deep breaths to ward off the dizziness that’s threatening to swallow him. He looks up at A3 as his other hand moves down to pull his knife free, and A3 looks down, almost apologetically. Suddenly, there’s a muffled yelp from the other side of the street and both Deacon and A3 turn. 

Magpie has her arm around Zimmer’s neck, crushingly tight, and her gun at his temple. “You kill him; I kill your master. Back away, asshole.”

A3 stares at Magpie for a moment, reassessing the situation. Deacon gets his knife free and rams it with as much force as he can muster in A3’s boot, fully aware that it might go right through the boot, foot, and sole, and into Deacon’s arm. Which is exactly what it does, but A3 makes a noise of pain and pulls his foot off Deacon’s wrist, knife along with it. As A3 deals with the problem of the knife, Deacon grabs his plasma pistol in his good hand and rolls away from the Courser, holding his broken wrist close to his chest. 

Deacon lurches to his feet, keeping his pistol trained on A3 as the Courser yanks the knife out of his boot and tosses it to the ground. Suddenly, there’s a rapid staccato of gunfire off to Deacon’s right, and then Indy is shouting at him. Deacon turns and catches R14 running toward Magpie and Zimmer, Olivia’s gun in his hand. 

“Miss, you’d better release me before R14 shoots you,” Zimmer says in a strangled voice.

“Why the fuck would he do that?” Magpie snaps as she twists Zimmer so he’s squarely between her and R14.

Deacon glances over to Indy and Olivia. There are frantic movements from Indy as he crouches over Olivia’s prone form. Deacon can’t see much else because of the dark, but he doesn’t need to, to know what happened.

There a muffled laugh from Zimmer. “Because I’m essential, and you’re not.”

Deacon whirls on R14 and fires on him. Plasma shots hitting their mark and burning through clothing and flesh. R14 stumbles and screams in pain, Magpie swears, and A3 shoots Deacon in the back; the steel plates of his vest take the impact again. R14 doesn’t stop moving, so Deacon shoots him again, putting him down for good. Deacon swivels to face A3 just as the Courser gains on him, broadsiding Deacon across the face with his rifle. 

Pain flashes through his cheek and jaw as Deacon crumples to the ground. 

“I said _back off!_ ” Magpie shouts, though her voice sounds far away. Then, there’s howl from Zimmer. 

A3 doesn’t move to finish Deacon off, so he can only assume that the Courser took Magpie’s threat seriously. There’s the crunching of boots next to Deacon’s head as he lies on the ground and tries to get enough sense back to pick himself up. He fumbles for a stimpak from his toolbelt as Magpie starts yelling something. He can’t quite make out what, cotton has suddenly filled his ears and he feels like throwing up. 

_Stim, stim, stim,_ he chants in his head to keep himself on track and finally grabs one from the pouch. He reaches across his body and jabs it in the arm with the broken wrist, the fuzz clears almost immediately, but his wrist still aches, and will until he gets another stim into his system. For now, it's enough to get him going again; Deacon rolls over and scrambles back onto his feet. 

A3 is advancing steadily on Magpie, and she’s dragging Zimmer with her as she backs away, yelling at A3 that she’ll kill Zimmer if he keeps moving forward. They both know that the only thing keeping her alive at this point is Zimmer, and either way, A3 will kill her once he gets within range. Deacon brings his pistol up to shoot at A3’s back when Indy shouts from off to the right and charges with his knife drawn. 

A3 turns, aiming his laser rifle at Indy as he closes and Deacon shoots A3 in the leg, causing the Courser’s shot to go awry. That gives Indy enough time to ram into A3 with his shoulder, pushing the Courser back with a few stumbled steps as Indy’s knife find a home in A3’s chest. Indy pulls his knife out and stabs A3 again, and then a third time. Each time the blade goes in, the Courser’s legs buckle more and more until he’s kneeling on the ground and Indy is towering over him. Then, Indy brings his knee sharply up, catching A3 under the chin and he goes down, still.

There’s a noise of victory from Magpie and Indy gives Deacon a hesitant smile, but Deacon is staring at A3. Coursers are very hard to kill, and even with three stab wounds all in the vicinity of his chest, Deacon doubts he’s down for the count. Deacon takes a breath to tell them not to let their guard down when Magpie speaks. 

“Guess we don’t need you anymore,” she says and before Zimmer has an opportunity to reply, she shoots him. Zimmer collapses at her feet. 

Deacon’s stomach drops. Fuck. “Get back,” he says. “Get out of here. Get Olivia and get out of here.”

“Deacon,” Indy says, voice pained. “Olivia, she…she didn’t make it.”

“I said _get Olivia,_ ” Deacon repeats, bringing the full force of The Lone Wanderer into his voice as he briefly taking his eyes off A3 to look at Indy. “Get her and get out of here.”

Indy’s eyes go wide, but he nods and backs away from A3. Magpie steps over Zimmer’s body, moving closer to A3 and Deacon.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “They’re dead. We-”

A3 suddenly sits up and aims his rifle at Magpie. Blue streaks of laser fire hits Magpie dead on and she stumbles back, surprised more than anything at being shot. Deacon unloads the rest of his cell into A3, the Courser’s coat taking the brunt of the damage, but enough makes it through to distract A3 long enough for Indy to rush to Magpie’s side and drag her away from Zimmer’s body.

Deacon pops the empty cell out and grabs another from his tool belt, reloading with quick and sure fingers. By the time he’s done, A3 has pulled himself off the ground and is heading after Magpie and Indy, barely sparing Deacon a second glance. Deacon shoots A3 again, but the impact of the corrosive plasma doesn’t seem to phase the Courser. Deacon casts around for his knife, hoping to catch a glimmer of it in the fritzing light and- There! Deacon snatches it off the ground as A3 starts firing on where Indy and Magpie have taken cover.

He holsters his plasma pistol and rushes A3, jumping on his back and forcing him to compensate for Deacon’s added weight as Deacon plants his knife in A3’s shoulder and twists his body with all his might in an attempt to direct A3 away from Indy and Magpie. A3 scrabbles to get a solid grip on Deacon and pull him off, but like Savage Zac had clung to him like a feral ghoul all those months ago, Deacon clings to A3. Suddenly, A3 stops trying to pull him off and stills, Deacon gets a moment to wonder what to do next when he starts falling backward. 

A3 tips himself back and the two of them hit the ground, hard. The air is forced out of Deacon’s lungs as the weight of A3 lands heavily on top of him and his hands and legs lose their grip on the Courser. For several, painful moment, Deacon can’t seem to force air into his lungs and he’s left gasping and sputtering. A3 rolls off of him and Deacon slowly curls in on himself to try and ease the pain. 

He’s vaguely aware of A3 standing and Deacon’s hand moves toward his plasma pistol with the intention to defend himself from whatever might be coming next. However, there is no defending against the forceful kick that A3 lands against his stomach. The plates in his vest protect him from getting his organs ruptured from the strength of the blow, but it’s not helping his breathing situation, and Deacon rolls over to try and protect himself; his breathing ragged and whistling. 

A3 kicks him again, managing to find the sweet spot between the edges of the front and back plates in Deacon’s vest; he can feel a couple ribs cracking under the force and he’d probably scream if he had the breath to do so. Deacon needs to think of something _right now_ because A3 is going to beat him to death if he can’t come up with a way to stop this. As Deacon braces for another impact, A3 hauls up by the back of his vest and Deacon’s feet scramble for purchase on the ground before the Courser tosses him into the rusted-out truck Indy and Magpie are huddled behind. 

Deacon hugs the hood of the truck coughing and sputtering as Indy pops up from the other side with Magpie’s gun and fires at A3. If they made an impact on the Courser, Deacon’s doesn’t know, but it hasn’t stopped A3 from advancing on Deacon and roughly flipping him over as he wraps a hand around Deacon’s throat. 

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, once again about to be killed by the Courser he sent back to The Institute. 

As A3’s hand tightens and Deacon claws at it, a fleeting idea occurs to him as Zimmer’s previous words filter through his brain. It’s a bottom of the ninth, 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Hail Mary, kind of idea, but he’s got nothing left to lose. 

“...Essential…” Deacon croaks out, voice barely louder than a whisper, but A3 hears him and pauses. 

“Repeat,” A3 demands, fingers loosening slightly.

“I’m essential.”

A3 stares at him, two different expressions warring on his face. Then: “Clarify.”

“Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha,” Deacon replies, and points at himself. “Me.”

A3 catches Deacon’s damaged arm and rips back the cuff, popping buttons as he does, to get at the dried blood from the self-inflicted knife wound. Deacon does nothing but winces slightly at the pressure put on his tender wrist as A3 leans down to lick the blood off his arm. And here he was hoping to never have to be a human wine again.

“Identity confirmed,” A3 says and releases his grip on Deacon, stepping back as Deacon slides to the ground in a crumpled heap, arm braced against his side. A3 moves around the car, heading toward Indy and Magpie. 

“Leave them,” Deacon rasps out. “They’re with me.”

“They’re Railroad,” A3 replies but he pauses.

“So am I.”

“She killed Doctor Zimmer, it is my duty to see her destroyed.”

“You don’t even like Zimmer, Harkness. ‘Good riddance,’ is what you said to him when you left.” Deacon slowly pushes himself up the side of the truck, hand falling to his plasma pistol, but he doesn’t draw it. Not yet. 

“My personal opinion on Doctor Zimmer is irrelevant. He was essential.”

“Right now, your opinion is all that matters. Self-determination isn’t a malfunction, remember?”

A3 glances back at Deacon, he looks as if he wants to say something further (maybe like how Deacon is being a bit of a hypocrite right now considering how A3-21 ended up under Zimmer’s control again), but he doesn’t speak. Just returns to Deacon’s side and helps him stand fully. 

“If you’re done talking with the synthetic sonuvabitch,” Indy says, eyeing A3 with distrust, “Magpie needs some stims and mine are all gone.”

Deacon swears and moves around the front of the truck, ribs screaming out in protest to every little movement, but damn if he’s going to lose another trainee tonight. A3 attempts to help, but Deacon brushes him off, it hurts more if the Courser tries to aid than if Deacon just hobbles along under his own power. 

“For fuckssakes…” Magpie grates out, voice hoarse with pain. “I thought you’d never stop talking to that asshole.”

Despite the cauterizing effect of laser fire, there’s still blood oozing out of the wounds in her gut. If it had been ballistic fire, she’s would be dead by now, the internal bleeding too great to be stopped, but if you ever have to get shot, it's best to get shot by a laser. Greater chances of survival. 

“Don’t you have any stims of your own?” Deacon asks as he passes his remaining two stimpaks to Indy -the only one of them who seems to have made it out of this fight intact. 

“One. I used it already, though, trying not to die.”

“Just the one, Indy,” Deacon says, sinking back down to the ground to lean against the truck’s tire. Three is too many for even the most hardened of Wasters to take all at once. “And give me back the other one.”

The three of them sit in the dust and the dirt of the street for a while, healing as best they can and trying to find the energy to get up and deal with the aftermath of the fight. A3 stands over them, watching the area around the taphouse, taking Deacon’s ‘essential’ status very seriously -he even handed back Deacon’s knife after plucking it from his shoulder. However, Deacon’s still wary that A3 will decide that his status as a Railroad agent will override his importance as the Capital’s Alpha priority target, but for now, it seems they’ve found an unexpected ally. 

Indy is quiet, which isn’t all the unusual for him as he’s a thoughtful speaker, but the kind of quiet he is right now, and the methodical way he’s trying to rub the blood off his hands, has Deacon a bit worried about his state of mind. They’ll need to talk, but first they have to get out of this place. 

Deacon glances across Indy to Magpie. She’s still holding her stomach and checking her hands every once and a while with a grimace. She must feel Deacon’s eyes on her because she looks over at him with a frown. 

“Still bleeding,” she says. 

Deacon frowns, because she shouldn’t be. 

“Got a bit of a resistance to stims,” she explains. “Overused them a couple of years ago and now…” She shrugs, wincing at the movement. 

“Then we need to get movin’,” Deacon replies and starts to stand, testing the weight his previously broken wrist can handle. There’s a grinding sensation and a sharp pain lances through his arm; he hisses. One or more bones haven’t set right. Great. He’ll have to have it rebroken. 

Indy helps Magpie to her feet and strips out of the plaid shirt he’s wearing, leaving him with only a t-shirt to fend off the night’s chill. With Magpie’s aid, they get it wrapped tightly around her waist to help further slow the bleeding. Indy slings one of her arms over his shoulders and prepares to help her walk back through Boston’s streets. 

“Get Olivia,” Deacon says to A3 and points to where she’s lying, still and cooling just across the street. “We’re not leavin’ her here.”

A3 nods and moves swiftly across the street. Deacon catalogues the Courser’s visible damage, trying to calculate just how long he’ll last before he too needs some stimpaks to repair the damage they inflicted on him. Problem is, they can’t take him to any of their safehouses where a Railroad doctor might be, or to Goodneighbour to see Amari because A3 can’t be trusted.

Deacon may be essential and above harming for now, but he doesn’t know how much of Harkness or the Courser from before survives in this version. There’s no guarantee that he won’t simply return to the Institute at his earliest convenience and divulge all that he’s learned about The Railroad. That leaves only one place within reach that has a medical doctor to look at him, Magpie, and Deacon, and is a known quantity to the Institute. 

Diamond City.

Deacon’s going to have to come up with a good story to ward off the million questions the populace will have for Rhett and his merry band of injured misfits. And won’t that be fun?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Tana’ is Montana and ‘Noscotia’ is Nova Scotia.
> 
> Since the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42, it’s obvious that Deacon has a copy of Douglas Adams’ _‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’_ stashed in his room at Ticon. Parade’s probably nicked it, though. 
> 
> If anyone has watched _‘Kingdom Hospital’_ , Johnnie BeGood is supposed to look like a really young Stephen King. If you haven’t watched it, that won’t make sense, but just go with it.
> 
> I had to FIGHT with chapter. I don’t know why it didn’t want to be written, but it just didn’t. And because of that, everything else _but_ writing was suddenly super interesting. It wasn’t until the end that things starting coming easily again. So sorry for the long time between updates. D:
> 
> P.S. I’m at the top again, Hornswaggler. Huzzah!


	19. Any one you walk away from.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Our doubts are traitors,_   
>  _and make us lose the good we oft might win_   
>  _by fearing to attempt._
> 
> _-Measure for Measure (1.4.84)_

The sun is just starting to spread its pink and purple stripe along the horizon by the time they make it to Diamond City’s gate, broken, bloodied, and bruised. Indy and Magpie are clearly exhausted, Deacon is barely functioning with any kind of cognizance as he attempts to save it for the DCS guard on duty, and A3 is showing signs of fatigue from having to bear Olivia’s body across the breadth of Boston but Deacon just couldn’t leave her behind. She was his student, his responsibility, and damn if he is going to let her rot in the street with Zimmer. 

She deserves better than that. 

A pair of DCS guards meet them at one of the choke points into Diamond City’s square, asking briefly what the group’s visit to the city is this late at night. In the spotlight, it’s clear to see they need medical attention and they are quickly waved in. One guard even takes Deacon’s place holding Magpie upright—Indy shooed him away, unwilling to give up his spot. 

Sammy Swatter seems to stare mournfully at them as they pass by, as I to say: _‘What have you gotten yourself into this time?’_

Deacon has hopes that they might pass into Diamond City and get to Sun without anyone recognizing him, but the door guard on duty is Danny Sullivan and though Deacon doesn’t have the same face anymore (nor the one from his last horrible visit) his vest is immediately recognizable.

“They need to see Sun,” the guard who is helping hold Magpie says as they reach the closed gate. 

Danny’s eyebrows raise at the sight of them, Deacon imagines that they look like death warmed over, and Danny turns immediately to the speaker to ask for the door to be raised. They all shift their various loads as the wait for the door to get high enough to allow them passage through and it’s then that Danny seems to put two and two together. 

“Rhett? That you?”

Deacon gives him a tight smile but doesn’t say anything to confirm or deny. Danny takes his silence as a yes. 

“Christ,” Danny continues, “what happened to you out there?”

“Oh, ya know…the usual: Gunners with large guns and bad attitudes,” Deacon replies as the door finally gets high enough for them to get under. “Can we save the interrogation until after my people have seen Sun?”

“Of course, sorry,” Danny says as the group starts moving into the outer ring around the field. “I just…well, it’s been awhile since you were here last and I—”

“ _Later_ Danny,” Deacon quickly interrupts. He doesn’t want Danny giving away the details of his last visit to Diamond City within hearing range of Indy. “Sun first.”

“Right.” 

Danny waves over one of the DCS guards further out in the square, and as the group makes it to the concrete stairs leading to the field, Danny has a few words with the other guard and then trots over to their hobbling procession. 

“I’ll go wake the doc,” he says and then dashes off. 

Diamond City is quiet as they arrive in the market, except for Percy’s thrusters firing as he putters around Myrna’s shop. Indy and the DCS guard set Magpie down on the bench beside the Mega Surgery Center to wait for Sun. Deacon tells A3 to give Olivia to him and the Courser sets her down so that Deacon can lift her and set her on his shoulders. His wrist, and ribs protesting the strenuous movement. 

Deacon tells the group to say as little as possible about what happened, and if they need to, to tell Sun that ‘Rhett’ will explain things later and pay for their care. Indy gives him a solemn nod that Deacon takes as assurance that he’ll look after Magpie and keep quiet. Deacon sets off across the market, his boots loud on the wooden planks on the ground and legs heavy with Olivia’s weight. 

The proper disposal of the deceased is a very important consideration for any major settlement as a large area of decaying corpses, like those in a graveyard, attract feral ghouls and once they move in, they can be very difficult to get rid of. Most large settlements burn their deceased because it has two major benefits: one being, no rotting flesh for feral ghouls to eat, and two, the ash of burnt wood and a body provide excellent fertilizer for crops. 

As such, most pyres are built on the fallow ground of a settlements farming allotment and the ash is tilled into the ground for use in the next growing season. Diamond City has two major farming allotments that are used in rotation so that one area is always fallow. Deacon makes his way to this field and lies Olivia down on the ground, kneeling beside her in the dirt as he considers building her a pyre now. There’s usually a large stock of scrap wood hanging around, anything from broken furniture to felled trees. 

The population of Diamond City tends to keep the wood stocked and replenished through various garbage furniture items and through a fund run by Sun who collects caps and purchases wood from a caravanner out of Bunker Hill. He usually runs a drive about twice a year, though ‘drive’ implies some manner of civility, which the doctor isn’t known for. Basically, Sun goes around with a Vault-Tec lunch box and goes, “Do you want an infestation of ferals? No? Then put some caps in the box.”

Deacon smiles slightly at the memory and suddenly misses living in Diamond City. Misses living in Megaton. Misses living a life that isn’t so fraught with death and loss and horrible complications. He feels like there should be more emotion to it than a simple, "Wasn’t it easier then?" because he has spent so much of his time lately lamenting the death of his life that was, but he can’t seem to muster anything more than a sense of nostalgia for it. 

He’s screamed and shouted and raged against the injustice of it all since the first moment he realized that his dad had left the vault, and what good has that done him? Did it ever change the outcome of some shitty piece of life? Did it ever help him get to a point in his life where he was happy again? Nope. 

That acknowledgement doesn’t make him feel empowered or ready to try and change the state of things, rather it just makes him realize the futility of it all. 

He can’t shout things into good, nor can he, it seems, constructively change them for the better. There’s always someone else tearing it apart far quicker than he can build it, so what’s the point? What good ever came from fighting the good fight? Is there even a good fight to be had?

There are no tears for Olivia. He’s exhausted, and that exhaustion is the only thing keeping Deacon from walking out the gates of Diamond City and straight out of the Commonwealth altogether. She deserves better of him, he knows, but that’s true for everyone who has ever had the horrible luck to cross paths with him, with The Lone Wanderer. 

Deacon hears footsteps approaching behind him, but they don’t truly register until two people kneel in the dirt on either side of him. They don’t speak immediately, but Ellie takes one of his hands in hers, and Nick wraps an arm around his waist. 

“What’s her name?” Ellie asks after several moments of silence, voice soft and low. Whether it's for him or a courtesy for the transient workers than sleep outside, he’s not sure. 

“Olivia.”

“What was she like?”

Deacon takes a steadying breath because he can feel the beginning of a loud, emotional breakdown and he wants to hold off on it. “Thoughtful. Kind. Too good for this kind of work.” A cliché strikes him particularly hard in that moment. “Only the good die young.”

Ellie squeezes his hand.

“Wanna tell us what happened?” Nick asks. 

“No,” Deacon replies.

“That’s okay,” Ellie says, soothing. “Whatever you want. Should I go wake Art?”

Deacon looks over at Ellie, confusion on his face. “What?”

It’s Nick who answers. He leans in close to whisper, “Arturo, kid.”

Oh. _Oh._ Because this is Railroad business. Because Diamond City’s resident agent might want to know about and maybe help with the situation. 

“I don’t…I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I—I can’t think straight. Things are fucked and I shouldn’t even be here, but there was nowhere else to _go._ ”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Deacon. We’ll figure this out,” Ellie says, calm certainty in her voice. “Is it okay if we all go back to the agency?”

Deacon stiffens immediately at the idea of leaving. He hasn’t done anything for Olivia yet, he can’t just leave her out here to bake in the coming summer sun. Nick stands and slips off his trench coat to lay it over Olivia like he did for Barbra Long on that cold February day. Then, he turns back to Deacon.

“I’ll round up some help in the morning to build a pyre, kid, but there’s nothing else to do for her right now. Let’s get you back to the agency; you’re lookin’ a little rough around the edges.”

Deacon stares at Olivia a moment longer and then nods. He’s in no shape to be building or watching a fire, right now. Nick helps him off the ground and the two of them lead him back down the street to Valentine’s Detective Agency. 

Inside, they direct him to Nick’s bare bed, and Ellie heads to the loft to grab a blanket. On her way up, she tells Deacon to take off his gear. She returns with the blanket and sets it on the foot of the bed and then leaves with a few words about going to get with Arturo. Deacon starts pulling off his tool belt and holster with mechanical movements, wincing slightly anytime his wrist twists. Nick takes those things and hangs them both on the edge of the stairs. Then, he helps Deacon out of his vest, examining the damage to it as Deacon unlaces his boots. 

“I see Chuck’s work kept you alive again,” Nick says, turning the vest around to show Deacon the laser burns on the back of it. 

Deacon hums his agreement, not looking up. He doesn’t need to see the damage to know he once again cheated death. Maybe he should buy Charlie Fallon a bottle of whiskey or something in thanks because he’s sure as hell got his caps worth out of it. Nick hangs his vest on a coat rack in the corner that normally houses Nick’s coat and hat while Deacon wraps himself in the blanket Ellie brought and sits on the bed. 

The blanket smells slightly of disuse and soap, but it’s warm and Deacon’s suddenly cold. Shock probably. Or plain old tiredness.

The bed creaks as Nick sits down beside him, pulling the blanket slightly off Deacon’s shoulders as he does so. They shift a bit, trying to find the optimum placement of themselves. Then, Nick’s hand brushes gently against the left side of Deacon’s face.

“That looks nasty,” he says. There must a bruise there where A3 broadsided him with his laser rifle. 

“Was. Used a stim,” Deacon replies and sinks lower into the blanket. He’d rather Nick didn’t look at the visible signs of his failure tonight.

Nick reach up and takes his hat off his head, resting it on the crook of his knee. Then, he leans in and gingerly kisses the side of Deacon’s face—probably where the bruising is the worst. He’ll admit to being mildly surprised and touched by the action, which means he has to try and obscure it with a somewhat snarky comment about how he hasn’t had someone kiss an injury better since he was a child. 

Deacon turns his head slightly to say just that, so Nick can get the full effect of his cutting wit, but Nick captures his lips in a chaste kiss instead. Which was probably his plan all along, sneaky bastard; he knew that Deacon couldn’t resist the opportunity to be a sarcastic ass. 

It doesn’t last very long but seems to convey more than any words could. Like: "I hate when you’re hurt," and "I’m glad you’re back safe," and a hundred other things that Deacon wishes Nick wouldn’t feel toward him because right now he deserves none of it. 

“I liked it better when you lived here and I could watch your back, kid,” Nick says pulling back slightly. 

“Oddly enough, I thought something similar earlier.” Deacon shrugs. “If wishes were caps…”

Nick hums, but Deacon isn’t sure if it’s in agreement or disagreement with him. Then, Nick lights a cigarette and Deacon feels an immediate sense of calm as he breathes in the crisp smoke. A moment later, they hear the door to the agency open, and Deacon brings the blanket up and over his head, effectively looking like someone’s world-weary baba, as Arturo and Ellie round the corner from the office.

“There're two agents in training at Sun’s clinic,” Deacon says as Arturo stop in front of the bed. “Magpie and Indy. Magpie was severely injured and will probably need several days to recoup, Indy is unharmed but exhausted. He needs a place to crash until we move out again.”

Arturo nods, probably imagining how to fit another person into his small place. 

“There’s a third…person with us. He’s tall, my height, and has lots of plasma burns ‘cause I probably emptied an entire fuckin’ _cell_ into him.” Deacon takes a deep breath and tries to release the sudden anger in his voice. Then, he pins Arturo with his gaze. “Under no circumstances are you to initiate conversation with him. Understood?”

“Uh…okay, but why? What happened?”

“Better yet,” Nick adds, “Why the hell did you shoot him?”

Deacon gathers the blankets around him further, trying to distance himself from this current reality. “He’s a Courser.”

“Dios mío!” Arturo swears. 

“Oh, God…” Ellie gasps.

“You brought a _Courser_ to Diamond City?” Nick asks, voice harsh and sharp. “What the hell were you thinkin’?!”

“I was thinkin’ that I didn’t have a fuckin’ choice. I was thinkin’ about the safety of Goodneighbour and Bunker Hill and all the other safehouses that have doctors. I was _thinkin’_ that if I didn’t get Magpie medical attention she was going to die. I was thinkin’ that I owe a debt that I will probably never be able to repay. Are those acceptable reasons, or would you like another, Nick?”

“You put this city in danger.”

Deacon barks a harsh laugh. “Oh please, this city has been in danger for years. You think that Courser is the first Institute agent to step foot in this place? You have an infiltrator that makes their home here, that works here, has friends here, is _liked_ here. Diamond City has never been ‘safe’.”

Nick is ready to counter Deacon’s assessment of Diamond City when Ellie places her hand on his shoulder; he quiets but doesn’t let go of the frown marring his face.

“I think we need to know what happened tonight, Deacon,” Arturo says after a moment of silence.

Deacon sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “We were on a package run and we were ambushed. The package is dead and now I have a Courser to deal with. That’s as much as you need to know, for your safety and Nina’s. That’s why you aren’t to initiate any conversation ‘cause I don’t know where his loyalties lie.”

“That’s pretty obvious isn’t it, kid?”

“It’s complicated. Look, I’ll go talk with Indy, and Arturo-”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Ellie interrupts. “You’re in no condition to be traipsing around town right now. You’re dead on your feet. I’ll go to Sun’s clinic and talk with this Indy.”

“No,” Deacon replies. “I don’t need A3 thinkin’ you’re the Diamond City agent.”

“Why not?” Ellie counters. “I’m friends with just about everyone in town, so it wouldn’t very smart for them to try and take me or kill me and earn the ire of the whole place. I also work for a detective who would stop it nothing to find me if I _did_ go missing. This will help keep Art and Nina safe should something happen. I’m the best choice.”

“Ellie—” Nick starts, but she cuts him off.

“Don’t ‘Ellie’ me, Nick Valentine,” she snaps. “I’m a big girl and I can make my own decisions. I’ll go talk with Indy, discretely, and Art, you go home and talk with Nina. Make sure she won’t say anything about your guest to Nat. I love Piper, but she’ll be all over this like a feral ghoul on a raider.” Ellie tightens the belt on her housecoat like one might tighten a sword strap for battle. “Right. I’ll be back.”

Ellie disappears around the corner and they hear the agency door open and close.

“I guess that’s my cue to leave as well. I’ll check in later,” Arturo says and follows Ellie’s path out the door.

Deacon and Nick sit in silence for a few moments.

“Why does she still work for you?” Deacon asks with a tired laugh. “She should be mayor.”

Nick smiles. “Hell if I know.”

“I can see it now: ‘Ellie Perkins for Mayor.’ Imagine the debate! McDonough would bluster and prevaricate and Ellie would cut through all his bullshit with a few simple words. I’d pay to see that.”

“You tell her that, kid; tell her to run next year, ‘cause I don’t know if anyone else will and someone needs to knock McDonough out of office.”

Deacon yawns. “I will.”

“She gonna be safe?”

“From A3? Yeah, I think so. I mean, he’s gotta know that Diamond City is under the watch of The Institute and doin’ somethin’ that might jeopardize their position in the city is a no-no.” Deacon shrugs. “He’s not all bad.”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “Can’t be much of a Courser if he didn’t manage to kill you.”

“Not for a lack of tryin’.”

“Are you gonna spend all your time here teasing about what happened and not actually talkin’ about it?”

“I don’t even know why you’re askin’, Nick. The answer is pretty much always: Yes.”

Nick gives him a look and Deacon feels a bit like he’s let Nick down somehow. “You should get some sleep, kid. I’m gonna go check on Ellie.”

“Well, do it from a distance, Nick. She’ll be ticked if she thought you didn’t believe her capable.”

Nick gives him a wry smile as he stands from the bed. 

After he’s gone, Deacon cocoons himself in the blanket and lies down. He’s about 85% sure that nothing will happen with A3, though he’ll have to speak further with A3 about what the hell Deacon is supposed to do with a Courser bodyguard because that’s _really_ going to cramp his style.

He’s not sure when he drifted off, but he’s semi-awoken by a harsh, whispered argument. 

“-can’t stay here!”

“Do you want to argue with a Courser?!”

“It could kill us.”

“Which is a perfectly good reason _not_ to argue with him.”

Deacon shifts slightly in bed. “I can hear you.”

“Sorry,” Ellie whispers.

“What’s the matter?” Deacon mumbles.

Nick makes a noise of annoyance. “That Courser wanted to stay in the same place as you. Tried to talk it out of it, but it wouldn’t be persuaded.”

Right, he should have thought of that. Essential.

“ _He’s_ out in the office,” Ellie adds.

“A3?” Deacon calls, pulling the blanket down slightly from his face. 

There’s the quiet sound of boots on the concrete floor, then: “Yes?”

“Don’t kill anyone ‘til I say so.”

“Very well.”

“Also, try and sleep. Even Coursers need rest. And don’t piss Nick off,” Deacon adds as he rolls over. “He’ll put you down.”

“Unlikely.”

Deacon sort of laughs. “Your funeral, pal.”

And then he’s out.

\- - - - -

Ellie leaves the agency just after the Courser falls asleep in the interview chair. She says that she’s going to and help Francine, over at the bakery, with her morning bake and will return when office hours begin. Despite disagreeing on how to handle the Courser, Nick thinks she a little put off by the synth. Not that he blames her. Residents of Diamond City are a little uncomfortable with the idea that a synth could look like and sound like them without being one of them. 

Unfortunately, the memory of the Broken Mask Incident is carved into every bit of wood and concrete in Diamond City and though there are few alive who remember that day, it’s weight presses upon every resident. Whether or not they grew up in town.

Nick stays in the agency, sorting through a few new case files as is his want, and watching the Courser. He doesn’t know what the kid was thinking in bringing that thing to Diamond City, but hell if he’s going to let it out of his sight until he can be assured that it won’t go around picking off the Railroad agents in town. 

It doesn’t take long for the morning activities of Diamond City to begin. Slowly at first, and increasing until every member of the town is up and about for one reason or another. When his internal chronometer tells him that 8 a.m. has rolled around, Nick sets aside his work and stands. Then, he heads to the back and grabs Jack’s vest from the rack. When he returns to the office area, the Courser is awake and standing next to Ellie’s desk.

Nick didn’t even hear him move.

“Sleep well?” Nick asks, wondering if anyone could’ve slept comfortably in that chair.

“Yes,” A3 replies.

“Good. Got a few things to do this mornin’. You should tag along.” Nick would feel better about leaving Jack to sleep if the Courser wasn’t in the same building.

Its eyes flick to where Nick came from.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nick says, moving toward the door. “The kid would sleep through a second Great War today. He’ll know where to find us when he wakes.”

It hesitates a moment longer before giving a slight nod in agreement.

As Nick strolls through the streets, he greets the few people that cross his path. The Courser is a silent presence behind him and if it weren’t for the general feeling of being watched, Nick couldn’t be certain that he was being followed. Well, that and shocked looks that are tossed behind him after the “Good morning, Nick,” is given.

Nick heads into the market and then trots down the stairs to Fallon’s Basement. Inside, Becky is stocking her register and looks up when the doorbell chimes.

“You’re here bright and early, Nick,” she says, giving him a critical look as she closes the drawer on the register. “Some hooligan slice up your coat?”

“No. Lent it to a friend. I here to drop off this-” Nick holds up Jack’s vest. “It’s seen a bit of wear since Rhett was last in town.”

Becky’s eyebrows raise. “Come back, has he? Well, I guess Charlie can get it fixed up right. For a price.”

“Naturally.”

Becky takes the vest from Nick’s hands and clucks slightly at the state of it. Then, she looks over Nick’s shoulder at his shadow.

“Looks like he could use a new coat,” she says. “One without burn marks in it.”

Nick glances over his shoulder. She’s right, the Courser he’s dragging around looks a little rough. 

“Maybe just a shirt, Becky.”

She shrugs. “Your caps,” she says and sets down Jack’s vest before moving to a pile of shirts. She sorts through them, discarding a few with some muttered words about not being the right size before she lands on a faded paisley button up that seems to meet her requirements. “Here, this should fit. 15 caps.”

A3 looks at the outstretched shirt with mild disdain, but Becky wins the staring contest and the Courser takes the garment. Nick pats his pockets down, hoping he has enough caps on him because she won’t let them leave without paying for it. Luck is on his side today, though, and Nick hands over the caps. 

“You could leave that for Charlie to look at,” Becky says as the Courser starts unbuckling his coat. 

“Does he look like he’s got caps to you?” Nick replies and Becky rolls her eyes as if it’s his fault the thing doesn’t subscribe to the Wasteland’s monetary system. Nick pulls out his cigarettes and goes to light up when Becky lets out a noise of surprise.

The Courser has a plain white t-shirt under his coat, well it was white at one point. Right now, however, it’s soaked through with blood. Dark and looking mostly dry where it isn’t torn and ripped around its chest and shoulders. 

“Jesus, Sun…” Nick mutters in annoyance. Couldn't the doc spare a wet cloth or something? “Hey,” Nick says to the Courser. “Buckle back up, friend. Let’s go get some water before you put on that clean shirt, yeah?”

“As you wish, Mr. Valentine.”

“5 caps for a washcloth,” Becky chimes in and this time Nick rolls his eyes. 

He pays the 5 caps, though.

Back outside, Nick leads the Courser through the streets, trying to stay off the main thoroughfares. Unfortunately, the water purifier is all the way on the other side of town, so he must be somewhat creative in his choice of streets. They manage to reach it with a minimum number of surprised looks at them and Nick points at the side spout. 

“Trade ya,” he says and hands over the washcloth as the Courser gives him the paisley shirt. 

Nick glances around them, to make sure that there aren’t any passersby around or that Sheng Kawolski isn’t peering around his shack, and grabs an empty bucket from one of Sheng’s shelves. He fills it with water from the pond as it begins unbuckling again, and sets it on the ground. Once the sodden undershirt is off, it’s slightly harder to tell that there’s been a deluge of blood, save for the bits caking to the coarse hairs on the thing’s chest. 

Nick tosses the paisley shirt over his shoulder and sets about lighting his forgotten cigarette. It looks like it got up-close and personal with Jack’s knife. 

“You got a name?” Nick asks after a minute or so of silence save for the sound of water occasionally hitting the ground.

“My designation is A3-21.”

“Can’t call you that ‘round here. Anythin’ else?”

The Courser pauses, going completely still, like a wind-up toy that’s reached the end of its spring. Then: “He called me Harkness on two separate occasions. It’ll suffice.”

“Who called you that?” Nick asks, knowing the answer.

“The one who now goes by ‘Deacon’, though that’s not his name,” Harkness replies and continues washing.

“And what would you know about that?”

“He’s Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha. John, son of James. Uses the nickname, ‘Jack’. Also known as ‘The Lone Wanderer’.”

Nick’s eyes widen. Why the hell does The Institute know so much about the kid? Scratch that, what the hell do they care?

“You’re surprised.”

“Kinda. Didn’t think your bosses cared about the Capital Wasteland.”

Harkness wrings out the cloth, pink water splashing the ground. “They have inferior technology, but The Brotherhood is currently being monitored, as are known Railroad routes.”

Nick is silent for several moments, wondering why he’s getting all this information so easily, wondering if it’s false. He remembers the kid mentioning that synths were unable to speak about The Institute as some kind of safety measure, and yet this one is just spouting things left, right, and center. 

He checks their surroundings again, making sure they’re still alone. “Why the interest in Deacon?”

“He’s intelligent and has varied genes.”

Ah. Nick should’ve guessed, they’d have to stave against extinction and inbreeding somehow. Still, he’s kind of disappointed it isn’t for some other more spectacular reason. He should be glad it isn’t something more nefarious than that, but shoving Jack into a such an ordinary peg does him a disservice.

“I’m ready for the clean shirt,” Harkness says as Nick mulls over the information and Nick tosses it at the Courser.

As Harkness is buttoning up, Nick takes the wet cloth and bucket from the ground. He doesn’t imagine that the Courser has poison for blood or anything, but the fewer questions about a bloody washcloth left around the purifier, the better. He doesn’t need some scrappy 12-year-old coming to the agency to complain that Nick isn’t taking the kid’s business seriously.

“You capable of moving some wood?” Nick asks, the sight of the recently scarred-over stab wound still fresh in his mind.

Harkness rolls its shoulders. “Moderate amounts.”

“Good. ‘Cause I need some help building something. Follow me.”

It’s early afternoon by the time Nick and Harkness have finished stacking the charred concrete blocks around the pyre and Olivia’s body. The blocks will help keep the heat of the fire concentrated so that it reduces the amount of wood needed, and burns the body more thoroughly, acting as a sort of kiln. Though the entire body is never completely reduced to ash, and the bits of bone and teeth are collected by the family to be kept in an urn or disposed of as they wish. Nick doesn’t know what Jack will do with the remains of Olivia after the cremation is complete, and he doubts the kid has thought that far ahead. 

Well, they’ll figure that out when the time comes, he supposes.

There are a few questions from passersby about who the pyre is being built for since a death in town is usually circulated amongst the people before one is built. Nick answers as best he can and says that Olivia is a friend of a former resident. Some may not approve of a stranger getting funeral rites in Diamond City, but the farmers are always pleased to get nutrients for their soil and having food makes everyone happy. 

Now, all that’s left is to wait for Jack and his fellow agents.

Nick lights a cigarette as one of the farmers brings a glass of water over for Harkness from their jug. The Courser stares at it for a moment, as if it didn’t realize that hydrogen and oxygen molecules formed something wet, then it takes the glass with a stiff “Thank you,” and downs the contents in several long gulps.

“They might share some food too if you need some,” Nick says, “Or more water.”

Harkness thinks about it for a moment and then walks over to the farmer’s pergola where their cooking station is set up. The synth is awkward and formal, but the farmers welcome it and quickly shove a plate with a brahmin meat sandwich into its hands and refill its glass. That, right there is what he loves about this place: people might be wary of strangers, but they’re always willing to help. 

Frankly, it’d be in Diamond City’s best interest to create permanent housing for the transient farmers, maybe get a greenhouse going for fresh produce all-year-round, but McDonough is seemingly against further growth in the city and Nick doesn’t understand why. 

Ellie as mayor is looking like a better and better idea. 

Idly, Nick mentally shifts through anyone who might be interested in replacing Ellie should she decide to run. Nothing’s set, hell, Jack probably hasn’t said anything to her yet, but Nick wants to make sure that she can’t back out of the idea on the grounds that: ‘Nick doesn’t have anyone to replace me.’ She isn’t irreplaceable, and he means that in the best way. Ellie is going to bigger things with her life than be his secretary and synth wrangler. 

“Got a light, detective?”

Nick glances over to see Piper standing next to him, her unlit cigarette dangling between two fingers. He was wondering how long it would take her make her way over here. Nick pulls his lighter from his pocket and flicks it open, she leans forward and lights her cigarette in the flame.

“So,” Piper says as she lets out a curl of smoke, “Who died?”

“No one from town,” Nick replies.

“Yeah, kinda figured that from the lack of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the market. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the group that came into the city last night in need of medical attention, would it?”

“If you’re askin’, you already know the answer.”

Piper smirks. “And you’re being decidedly cage about this Nick. Come on, spill. I’ve already got most of the story.” 

“Danny pour his heart out?”

“Hey, can I help it if the man has a crush on me?” She leans in and blows smoke out her nose. “He said Rhett’s back.”

Nick nods, his own smoke curling out the side of his face. “For now.”

“How you holdin’ up?”

“I’m fine, Piper.”

She gives him a long look, trying to determine the truth of that statement. “No you’re not,” she says after a moment, “and you shouldn’t be.”

“A lot’s happened since he left the city. Don’t worry about me.”

“I know that job’s already taken, but I’m a worrier, and I don’t want to see him walk all over you because you have a soft spot for the asshole.”

 _It’s a little more than a soft spot,_ he thinks. “I won’t.”

“Okay, good. So,” she says, changing topics, “What the deal with tall, dark, and weird?” Piper points her cigarette at Harkness.

“Came in with Rhett.”

“Not what I meant, but let’s start there. They got ambushed by Gunners?”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “Run out of material for your paper?”

“Look, Rhett is an asshole, but he’s an asshole I happen to, _occasionally,_ worry about (don’t’ tell him I said that), and if there are Gunners around the DC area then it’s important that we let people know so they go out properly armed.”

He imagines that Jack didn’t think of that when he offered that lie. 

“I don’t know anything about it,” Nick replies after a moment. “You’d be better off talkin’ with Rhett.”

Piper gives him a look that clearly says _‘I don’t believe a word you said’_ and looks ready to start peppering him with pointed questions that he will have a hard time not answering, so Nick speaks first. 

“You talked with Arturo? He might have heard more about the Gunner situation.”

Piper clicks her jaw shut and blushes. He doesn’t like using the gossip of her crush against her, but he’ll not get through an interrogation with Piper without giving something away to her sharp eyes and quick mind. 

“Why…why would I do- uh…what makes you think that he’d know?”

Nick shrugs. “He gets a pretty regular shipment from Quincy, right? Seems like he’d know a thing or two about them is all.”

“Sure…I suppose. Makes sense.” Piper’s still flushed and is attempting to get back her previous easy demeanour. She takes a long drag on her cigarette. “Uh…is Rhett around anywhere?”

“Crashed in the office last night, probably still out, but he’ll be here soon enough.”

“Right. Well, I guess I’ll go and talk to more cooperative witnesses.” She gives him a pointed look. 

“Good plan; Arturo will probably know more anyways.”

“I’m not- that’s not what I meant…”

“No?” Nick replies, mustering as much feigned surprise as he can. It’s not spectacular, but Piper isn’t really paying attention to his less than stellar fibbing skills at that moment. Then, he taps the side of his nose. “Oh, I got: _Danny._ ”

If possible, Piper looks even more mortified, and she turns on her heel, beating a swift retreat. He waits until she’s out of hearing range to laugh quietly. 

“Somebody trip?” 

Nick turns slightly to see Jack and another man come to a stop next to him. This must be Indy.

“No, just made Piper blush.”

Jack’s face lights up and he slides closer. “Tell me, tell me, tell me! It’s so hard to get that woman to blush about _anythin’._ ”

Nick’s eyes flick to Indy. “Maybe later, kid.”

“Man, where are my manners?” Jack says and gestures to Indy. “Nick, this is Indy. Indy this is Nick.”

He holds out his hand for Indy to shake, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, and Indy stares at it with a slight frown. There’s a moment of awkwardness before Indy takes his skeletal hand and give it a firm shake. Nick wonders if it was his hand that put the guy off, or something else. Like maybe that he’s a synth? Do Railroad members do what they do and not like synths? That seemed a little contradictory.

Jack doesn’t mention it, just breezes on to the next bit of conversation, but Nick has no doubt that he picked up on it. He’s also not looking at the pyre that Nick and Harkness built, but that’s the kid for you, ignoring the things he doesn’t want to acknowledge exist.

“You’ve been spendin’ time with our stoic plus one, I see,” Jack says, a smirk curling his mouth. “Do you have any idea how many times Becky tried to pawn that paisley horror off on me? ‘It fits your long back and manly, wide shoulders, Rhett. Buy it,’.”

Nick laughs at the kid’s dreadful impression. “All the while hidin’ the good shirts away until she could convince you to buy that one, hmm?”

“Exactly, but I am well known for my resistance to the charms of women. I held out for the good stuff, even though it was 5 caps more. So please don’t tell me you paid full price for that horror, Nick.”

“15 caps.”

“15? Hell, it was 20 when she tried to sell it to me. Gettin’ desperate to sell it, apparently.”

“It’s not so bad.”

Jack scoffs. “You’ve got eyes, right? Your optic sensors aren’t on the fritz or somethin’? ‘Cause that is _the ugliest_ shirt in the history of man.”

“Harkness doesn’t mind.”

“He wouldn’t.”

Nick raises an eyebrow, exhaling a curl of smoke. “Harkness mind the four or so stab wounds Sun neglected to wash?”

Jack’s smile vanishes.

“Three were mine,” Indy says, voice quiet and controlled, “and it tried to kill us, so who gives?”

There’s a momentary look of guilt that flashes over Jack’s face, but he doesn’t say anything to dispute Indy. Huh. Nick will have to ask about that later. For now:

“Helped with the pyre,” Nick says, gesturing at the cement block kiln. “Can’t be all that bad. Anyways, we can start whenever you like.”

Indy’s muttered, “Fucking synths,” is almost too quiet for Nick to hear. The man’s face is set in a grim line as he heads over to one of the two benches that Nick and Harkness set out. Jack still hasn’t looked at the pyre.

“He got a grudge against synths?” Nick asks, tilting his head toward Indy.

A ghost of a smirk appears on Jack’s face. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Should I be flattered he shook my hand?”

“Shouldn’t you be anytime you offer that metallic nightmare? Frankly, I’m surprised people don’t shriek when they first catch sight of it.” 

Nick snorts a breath of laughter, mostly because of the kid’s exaggerated look of horror, and takes one last drag from his cigarette before he twists the hot embers out and sticks the butt in his pocket. Then, he curls his hand around Jack’s upper arm. 

“Come on, kid. It’s time to put her to rest,” Nick says as he gently pulls Jack along. There’s moment of resistance, but in the end, he lets Nick lead him to one of the benches. 

Nick grabs one of the scraps of cloth that are covered in cooked brahmin grease and lights the corner of it on fire. Then, he sticks it in an air vent at the bottom of the kiln, as close as he can get to the smaller bits of wood, branches, and scrap paper products that are there for the fledgeling fire to feed on. After a moment, they catch and begin to burn quickly. Nick stands, hoping they built the kiln right and the air flow moves properly through the pyre. 

He reaches out for the other scrap as Jack moves up beside him, hands outstretched for it and Nick’s lighter.

He considers telling the kid he’s likely to burn himself trying to shove this piece of burning cloth in the air vent but decides not to. This is Jack’s closure, and he needs to do it so he can begin to forgive himself for Olivia’s death. Nick hands both items over and moves back to the bench. There’s a bit of a crowd now; the farmers have stopped to pay their respects as they pyre begins to burn, and a few other residents of the city that have been drawn in by rumours. 

Nick spots Piper standing near Harkness and wonders briefly if she managed to get any information out of the Courser.

Jack swears as he undoubtedly burns his fingers trying to shove the cloth into the hole. Nick can’t see him from where he is, but he imagines the kid is giving the fire a moment to catch properly before standing back. From this side, Nick can hear the crackling of wood as the flames get going good and strong and he feels a moment of relief. It would have been a shitty thing to have to pull apart the bricks and restack them. Jack stands then, jaw clenched tight and face closed. He steps around the kiln and returns to the bench, choosing to sit beside Indy and not Nick.

The farmers pay their respects until the black smoke of burning blood-soaked clothing starts to billow out of the side of the kiln, and then they disperse and return to their work. Unfortunately, the smell is something that puts most people off, though Nick himself can’t smell it, he’s been told on several occasions that it clings to the clothes of those around so fiercely that they must be burned as no amount of washing will get the stench out. He has always wondered if it is more of a psychological thing than not truly being able to wash out the scent of smoke and charred flesh, that that idea of the looking at the clothes you wore to a loved one’s funeral is too much to bear.

Harkness makes its way over as the farmers leave, and though Indy tracks him with a cold gaze, the Courser appears not to notice. It simply takes a seat next to Nick, spine straight and hands folded neatly in its lap. Piper joins them as well, shoving Jack’s shoulder to get him to make room for her on the bench. She doesn’t say anything, just gives his knee a gentle squeeze in support. 

They watch the pyre burn in silence.

\- - - - -

It's well past midnight before Jack is satisfied that the pyre has successfully burned Olivia's remains. Indy and Piper have long since left. Indy to check up on Magpie at Sun’s clinic, and Piper to look after Nat. Harkness has remained throughout, but Nick thinks it has more to do with not having anything else to do rather than a sense of respect for Olivia. It could also have to do with Jack himself, as the Courser seems to have a keen interest in the kid.

Nick has spent most of the time watching Jack, whose control seemed to be slowly cracking as the evening turned to night. The kid’s painfully straight face lasts about as long as it takes for them walk the paths out of the farming area and to reach Third Street again, then Jack missteps on an uneven piece of board on the ground and Nick catches his arm. However, instead of steadying himself, Jack seems to prefer to slowly sink to the ground. Nick lets him.

“I can't do this anymore,” he says, voice a harsh whisper. 

Nick's eyes flick to Harkness. “We'll meet you back at the agency,” he states, tone brooking no argument, and silently hoping that whatever control Jack seems to have over the Courser means Ellie will be safe. _One crisis at a time, Valentine,_ he thinks to himself.

Harkness stares at them for a moment, then nods and continues down the street. Nick crouches next to Jack and waits for the sound of the agency’s door closing before he speaks. 

“Do what, kid?”

Jack doesn’t appear to hear him and Nick puts a hand on his shoulder. The kid’s eyes flick to him.

“Hey...”

“Stop it,” the kid blurts out, “Stop bein' nice to me, stop liking me…just _stop._ ”

“What?” Nick asks, somewhat stunned.

Jack pulls away. “All I do is lie to people, and then they die. I don't lie and they die. I try to help and they die. I do nothing and they die. Everyone _dies,_ Nick, and I happen to like you, so it's just better for everyone if you just stop buyin' the ‘Nice Guy’ act and leave.”

Nick stares at Jack for a moment in shock, and then he starts laughing. It's just so _ridiculous_ that he can't help it. Nick thought he had a bit of a martyr complex, but this kid beats him by a long mile. He suspects that Jack beats him at just about everything.

“Oh, nice. Apparently, I'm the court jester everyone thinks I am,” Jack snaps and Nick's glad for it—anger he can deal with, despair is harder. “My own fault really. Still, I thought you of all people knew when I was tryin' to be serious. Look, I'll just leave you to it—”

“Shut up,” Nick says, laughter quieting in his voice, “and listen to me. If you're gonna fall on your damn sword every time somethin’ goes wrong, you'll never get it right the next time because you won't have learned anythin’ other than to blame yourself. And secondly, sole responsibility for the lives of others don’t fall squarely on your shoulders; Olivia didn't die by your hand, so put the blame where it belongs.”

The kid looks away and stands, speaking to the street ahead of him. “Well, surprise, surprise, it's still my fault, but thanks for that rousing pep talk, Nick. I'll be sure to think of you next time I commit emotional seppuku.” 

Nick considers laughing again, but that didn't seem to work so well for him last time. He tries a different tact. As Jack moves to walk away, Nick sticks his leg out, and in the semi-dark of the street Jack doesn't see it and trips again, hitting the ground with a pained yelp. For a moment, Nick thinks he might have fucked up because that sounded more like genuine pain than surprise at hitting the ground and he's about to ask if Jack's hurt, when the kid pulls himself into the quick crouch (favouring his one hand, Nick notes), spins around, and launches himself at Nick. 

The force of the collision causes Nick to fall back on the ground with Jack on top of him, his hands fisted in Nick's shirt.

“What the hell is your problem?” Jack demands.

“My problem? Kid, _you're_ the one with goddamned problem.” Nick grabs Jack’s arms and yanks him off to the side. 

They roll, but Jack keeps the momentum and Nick doesn't get the opportunity to come out on top. This is probably the most ridiculous thing Nick has ever done, rolling around the street, fighting like some drunkard over something that doesn't even bear this kind of reaction. _Goddamn kid._ Nick's starting to get pissed off, and granted he started this, but now he’s going to finish it. 

They keep rolling, neither letting the other get the upper hand until the roll one last time, nearly at the wall of the buildings on the far side of the street, and Nick pins Jack against it. The kid thrashes for a moment, looking for a way out, but in this at least Nick has him beat. His strength will always win against Jack's, and the kid settles after a moment. 

“You didn't answer my question,” Jack says, the look of anger on his face somewhat diminished by the dust covering him and the wild state of his hair. Nick doesn’t imagine he faired any better and his hat is lying somewhere behind him. 

“The hell I didn't. You're the damn problem, Jack.” 

The kid's jaw clenches, the way it does every time Nick says his name aloud. “Me? You're the asshole who started this. I’ll wallow in my misery if I want to. And in case your hard drive skipped back there, _you_ tripped _me._ ”

“Look, kid, I'm sorry if I hurt you when I did that, but you've got to realize that you aren't responsible for every bit of death and hate in this world. You're beatin' yourself up over things that are beyond your control, and not differentiating between the things you can.” Jack’s face softens somewhat and he looks away. Nick thinks maybe he’s making an impact. “I know it hurts when you lose someone under your command, but kid, four of you went up against a Courser, and three of you made it out alive. You and I both know that that is damn impossible to do. Hell, the only reason _we_ made it out alive is ‘cause we got the drop on it.”

“He didn’t kill her,” Jack whispers.

“What?”

“Harkness didn’t kill Olivia. The package did.”

Nick looks at Jack in confusion. “Kid, what happened?”

Jack gives Nick a sad sort of smirk and raises an eyebrow. “Not sure this is the place: me pinned against a shack wall, and us layin’ in the street. There are stars, though, so it’s sorta romantic.”

Nick chuckles slightly and figures that if the kid can manage a few jokes, he must be on more of an even keel than he was a few minutes ago. That or he’s trying to put up a wall between them again and Nick’s had about enough of that. He hardly sees Jack these days and damn if he’s going to let him shove Nick away because of some misbelief about his worth. 

“Okay, not here,” Nick agrees and lets go of Jack, shifting himself back to stand. He holds a hand out to help the kid back to his feet and again notes how Jack is cradling his one hand to his chest. “Let me see,” Nick says and gestures for the hand. 

There’s moment of hesitation and then a sigh as the kid lets Nick have his hand. “It’s my wrist,” he says.

“Did you sprain it when you went down?”

“No. Well…maybe, but it was broken last night and when I used a stim I think it set wrong. Hurts to use. I mean to see Sun about it, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

Nick narrows his eyes as he turns Jack’s hand around, gently inspecting his wrist. “Broke it how?”

“Does it matter?”

That’s all the answer Nick needs to piece it together. “Harkness broke it, didn’t it? Left hand, the one you shoot with. You two got into a fight and it crippled your ability to shoot?”

Jack tries to pull back, but Nick grabs his forearm to stop him. He doesn’t get why the kid is protective of the Courser. 

“Forget it, Nick. It’s done. I’ll see Sun tomorrow and it’ll be like it never happened.”

“Except it did. You’re stickin’ up for that thing and it that almost killed you, almost killed the people you were with, and now you’re dancin’ around how it hurt you. Why?”

“Funnily enough, this is still not the place. Stars are still nice, though.”

This time, Nick doesn’t laugh. “And it’ll never be the place, right? Not the agency, not Sun’s clinic, not anywhere around here and then you’ll just vanish once again without explainin’ anythin’.”

Jack frowns. “You don’t need to know, Nick. In fact, it’s better that you don’t.”

“For me or you?”

“Both.”

“What gives you the right to decide what’s best for me? You’re not the be and end all, kid, the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders, and you don’t get to decide how to protect others.”

Jack’s frown deepens and he steps closer, dropping his voice lower than the quiet tones they’d been using in the dark. “I decide because it’s my secret. This isn’t the Memory Lounger where you get to wander from memory to memory and view whatever bits of my past you like.”

Ah, so whatever this is, it has something do with ‘The Lone Wanderer’ that the kid has been trying so desperately to ignore. Nick softens somewhat, knowing this is a touchy subject.

“I didn’t go in there lookin’ for your past, kid. I went in there lookin’ for you, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m sorry that it felt like an invasion, like I pulled apart your ribs to get a look at your heart—” Jack flinches slightly and Nick mentally kicks himself for picking that particular metaphor, “—I would have fumbled uselessly around in that place if it weren’t for _you_. You showed me how to find the other part of you. So maybe I know more than what you’re used to givin’ out, and these days you get to choose what to tell me, but kid, _Jack,_ ” Nick quietly stresses his name so the kid will look at him again, “trust me with it. Trust yourself to trust me with it. You can’t do it all alone.”

There’s silence for a moment and in the distance, Nick can see the ‘Valentine Detective Agency’ sign flicker slightly. 

“Do you get what you’re askin’ of me? What that means? Nick, I have a plan; one that involves not stickin’ around after all is said and done, so I can’t just-”

“What? Stick around? Seems a pretty simple choice to me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not. It’s easier to pop a stealth boy and bug out than to face the prospect that I screwed up, that I screwed it _all_ up.”

“And yet you’re stayin’ to fix it. ‘After all is said and done’ sounds like a commitment to fix whatever you think is wrong.”

“No. It’s a commitment to-” Jack abruptly stops speaking as if something just dawned on him. He gets a horrified look on his face. “He was right…oh hell, Eden was _right._ ”

“What?” Nick asks when further explaining isn’t forthcoming, but he can see he’s lost the kid. Nick knows that expression, that’s Jack’s ‘I’ve had an idea and I need to do something about it _right now_ ’ look.

After a moment, the kid’s eyes flick back to Nick, a fire blazing in them. “I need a radio dish,” he says. “Are there any towers around here?”

Nick is thrown somewhat by the abrupt subject change and tries to think of an answer. “Yeah…” Nick replies after a moment, “I remember seein’ one about a mornin’s walk from the city, but you’re not goin’ anywhere until you’ve slept, kid, and had Sun reset your wrist. Then, we can talk about the sudden need for a radio dish.”

For a flickering second, it looks like the kid is going to rebel and Nick thinks he’s going to have to follow Jack into the Wastes to make sure he doesn’t die, _again_ , but sense wins out in the end and he nods in agreement. Nick leads him back to the agency so he can change his clothes and sleep.

Inside, Harkness is sitting in the interview chair and is engaged in a staring contest with the Maltese Falcon on Nick’s desk. Ellie is picking through a stack of case files that haven’t yet been filed and is sorting them into the right place in the cabinets; she probably couldn’t sleep until they made it back and needed something to keep her busy. 

As they shuffle inside, and Nick shuts the door, Ellie looks up from her work and Harkness twists somewhat to look at Jack, eyes darting to the kid’s injured wrist and then to Nick. Jack gives Harkness a couple reassuring pats on its shoulder as if to say ‘I’m fine. No big deal,’ and the Courser relaxes somewhat. 

Nick follows Jack back to his bed and grabs the sleeping clothes that Ellie clearly left out for the kid, holding them out for Jack to take. They all need to strip out of the clothes they are wearing and throw them in a heap outside the agency’s door if Jack, Harkness, and Ellie ever expect to get a good night’s rest. 

The next morning, Jack is still out—probably wrung raw from the emotional roller coaster that was yesterday. Ellie volunteers to take their clothes to the Dugout Inn to wash and Nick quietly protests because he’s perfectly capable of doing his own laundry, but she insists and after a brief fight, he agrees. She got caught up with Indy and Arturo yesterday and didn’t get the chance to come by the pyre, and Nick thinks she feels guilty about that. 

Especially after Nick filled her in about the fight he and Jack had—which he wasn’t going to mention but Ellie asked several pointed questions about the reason they were covered in dirt and scratches (and is everyone in this town a detective?).

Jack, for his part, just grinned and told some bullshit about tripping in dark and then deciding to admire the stars while he was lying on the ground. It isn’t exactly a lie, but it sure as hell isn’t the truth either. Nick thinks that about sums up most the things that come out of the kid’s mouth. However, after Jack crashed, Ellie cornered him about what really happened and Nick couldn’t stick to the kid’s tale. Not with Ellie. 

He’s not sure how much of the conversation Harkness heard, but Nick is pretty certain that The Institute hasn’t decided that their synths hear _too well_ , so it’s a good bet that it knows as much as they do. But what’s Nick supposed to do about that? It’s not like he can talk about the kid out in the streets and they must keep the Courser away from the Railroad assets in Diamond City, so he’s got to trust that whatever relationship Jack and Harkness had or have means that the Courser won’t turn on the kid, and subsequently, them.

Nick heads down to Sun’s clinic in the morning, while Ellie goes to the Dugout Inn. Harkness stays with Jack in the agency, and Nick finds that’s semi-okay with that decision. For now. Nick’s chronometer tells him it’s just nicely 8:34 a.m. when he arrives at the Mega Surgery Center. Sun is checking his supplies in the shop when Nick arrives, and he glances over when Nick climbs the short stairs.

“Nick,” Sun says, by way of greeting.

“Hey, Sun, how’s things?”

“Fine. Are you here to check on Rhett’s companion?”

Nick smirks and pulls out a cigarette. Always straight to the point with Sun. “Not specifically but, how is she?”

“Recovering, though she shouldn’t leave town for several more days,” Sun replies as he sorts through a cabinet, making notes on the number of supplies within. “I heard mention of Gunners as the cause.”

The way Sun says ‘Gunners’ makes Nick think he doesn’t buy the story and Nick says something to that effect.

“Pre-war laser weapons don’t do that kind of damage.”

“You’ve seen it before then.”

Sun gives him an odd look from over his shoulder. “We both have, haven’t we?” he replies but before Nick has a chance to form a response, Sun continues. “I haven’t seen Rhett, however, so I assume he hasn’t been shot.”

“Well, not anywhere he wasn’t covered by the vest Chuck made him, but the kid needs a bone reset.”

Sun pauses in his inventory and shifts to look at Nick, giving him his full attention. “Is it fractured now or healed improperly?”

“The second one. The kid used a stim and he’s pretty sure it didn’t fuse back together the right way.”

“If it was recent, then it shouldn’t be a problem. Bones take weeks to fully heal, even with the aid of a stim. Have him come by today, I’ll fix it.” Sun returns to his work, but thinks of something and turns back. “I’ll have to give him a full dose of Med-X for the pain.”

And won’t the kid just love that?

“I’ll tell him, but I think he already knows.”

Sun nods and goes back to work, which is about as friendly a goodbye as the man ever gives.

\- - - - -

Deacon wakes slowly and finds himself staring at the cinderblock wall in Nick’s agency. He would like to say that he has a few moments of blissful ignorance where he forgets that the past year has been a pretty crappy one in the grand scheme of things (not the worst, but far from great), however the last few days are still weighing very heavily on him, and despite his somewhat renewed conviction, part of him still wants to find a vault to crawl into and never come out of. 

Frankly, it’s a wonder he even managed to get to sleep in the first place. 

His wrist is throbbing something fierce and yet despite this, he’s not looking forward to seeing Sun about correcting it because he knows that he’s going to have to have some Med-X and the resulting hangover is almost enough to make him want to put up with the pain. Deacon is certain that he re-fractured it last night when he hit the ground. Ellie gave him some aspirin before he went to bed, bit’s long worn off and instead of cajoling more out of her, it’s best that he just goes to see Sun and resign himself to a day of Med-X induced hallucinations.

However, before that, he must do something about a) Harkness/A3-21, and b) about why his group hasn’t returned to the Cambridge Police Station. Deacon mulls these two things over while he stares at the concrete blocks and studiously ignores the pain in his wrist and heart. 

He should probably send Indy back to explain that they ran into some serious trouble on their run, but that seems shitty of him to make Indy tell the others that Olivia has died. That should be his responsibility, but he also can’t leave Harkness in Diamond City with Indy, Magpie, and Arturo while Deacon goes and fills his tourists, and subsequently Rave, in. Plus, there are some things he needs to do before can comfortably go back to the Cambridge Police Station. Like get a radio dish.

So, it’s decided then, Indy will go back to the CPS and Deacon will deal with Harkness—he is technically first in a line of things Deacon must fix right now. (Eventually, he’s going to have to prioritize because the list of things he needs to fix is _very_ long, but for now these two things are all he can cope with.) Deacon will have to ask that Indy not mention the Courser that Deacon drug back to Diamond City. That’s something Deacon is going to have to take up with HQ himself, and the smaller he can keep that fallout, the better, as he’d rather not have to crawl out from under it. 

Deacon smiles slightly to himself at that wording. 

The next question now is: what to do with Harkness?

In his current state, Deacon can’t trust him. He just can’t. He’d like to believe that a piece of the man he was before is still rattling around in there, and maybe something is, but-

He thinks of something suddenly and looks at his right forearm. The thin skin on the inside is probably one of the few places that isn’t marked by a scar of some kind, and though there isn’t anything on it now, once he had diligently written the code that Pinkerton gave him to restore Harkness’ memories of his life as an Institute synth. A code he never mentioned to Zimmer, and after he had given Harkness to the man, Deacon couldn’t bring himself wash the pen off his skin because he knew, even then, that he’d made a grave mistake. 

Those five words are burned into his brain, and he wonders if they’d still work. 

Deacon rolls over in bed, careful to keep his wrist braced against his chest, and sits up, swinging his feet over the edge. He looks around for his boots and finds them tucked under the edge of the bed. He pulls them on with his good hand and stands. Ellie scrounged him some sleeping clothes, and while he didn’t ask specifically where they came from, he hopes that she didn’t go out to Fallon’s and buy him something again. 

The creaking of the bed brings someone around the corner, and Deacon thinks it’ll be Ellie to check up on him, but it’s Harkness and he’s mildly surprised to see him. Deacon figured Nick would have dragged him out with him again to keep the Courser away from Ellie. Before Deacon has an opportunity to say “Good morning,” (or ya know whatever time of day it actually is), Harkness speaks:

“You’re injured.”

Deacon gives him a tight smile. “Yep. Hazards of the biz.”

Harkness stares at him for a moment. “Mr. Valentine caused this injury.”

Deacon loses his feigned good humour immediately. “No. Nick didn’t do this, you did.”

“Two stims partially healed the fractured wrist I caused, however, Mr. Valentine reinjured you last night. That’s unacceptable.”

Deacon bites down on the retort that comes to his lips; getting into a fight with Harkness isn’t going to help, and somehow Deacon thinks that he wouldn’t win in face of the Courser’s single-mindedness. Instead, he looks at Harkness and decides that now’s as good a time as any to test the code phrase. At worst, it doesn’t work, at best, Harkness goes back to the way he was pre-memory wipe and Pinkerton messing with his head. Deacon thinks that it’ll fall somewhere in between the two. 

“Activate A3-21 Recall Code Violet.”

There’s total silence in room and Deacon has no idea if the words have had any effect. 

Then, Harkness lets out an otherworldly shriek of pain and grief and launches himself at Deacon. In the small space, there’s nowhere for Deacon to go and he even if he the opportunity, Harkness’ speed far outstretches his own. The Courser catches Deacon around the throat and rams him into the cinderblock wall opposite the bed. His grip is tight enough that Deacon can be assured that it’s a threat against his life, but it isn’t yet enough to kill him. 

“You _bastard,_ ” Harkness snarls at him. 

“I’ll have you know, I had an excellent relationship with my dad,” Deacon replies, voice a strained whisper as his good hand moves to Harkness’ wrist. He knows he has no chance of pulling the Courser’s hand off his neck, but there’s an instinctual need to try.

Harkness yanks him sharply forward and slams him back again, causing Deacon’s head to whiplash against the blocks and there’s an explosion of white across his vision. He needs to keep his jokes to a minimum. 

“I should kill you,” Harkness says. 

For the first time in a long time, Deacon finds that in the face of imminent death, he doesn’t want to die. He wants to get out of this situation alive because has _so much_ to make up for. It’s right about then, that Deacon catches sight of Ellie coming to an abrupt halt next to Nick’s bed; she’s holding _his_ plasma pistol at Harkness’ back.

“And I’ll kill you if you don’t let Deacon go,” she snaps. 

Harkness frowns but doesn’t take his eyes off Deacon. “You’ll be dead before you get a chance to fire.”

Ellie’s aim only wavers slightly in face of that threat, and as impressed as he is with her bravery, Deacon can’t allow her to die for him. 

“I’m not the only one injured here,” Deacon begins, labouring against the harsh press of Harkness’ hand. “Indy gave it to you pretty good. Think you can move fast enough to get us both before she fires on you? No coat to protect you this time, pal.”

Harkness’ eyes narrow as he considers Deacon’s words. Then, his free hand darts out and grabs Deacon’s injured wrist, almost in defiance of the idea that couldn’t harm them both and survive. There’s a moment where Deacon shakes his head in a silent plea and widens his eyes in fear of the pain, before Harkness twists his wrist sharply, breaking it again. At the same time, his grip tightens on Deacon’s neck so the only sound he makes is a pained wheeze. Deacon’s eyes water and as he gasps for breath, trying to find air so he can breathe through the pain. 

Then, Deacon’s plasma pistol whirs as Ellie fires at Harkness, catching him long his left arm with the shot -bits of the splash burn where it speckles Deacon’s arm and chest. Deacon knows that a plasma shot hurts like hell, far more than a regular bullet, but Harkness doesn’t make any noise other than a hiss of pain. Courser skin must be more resilient to the corrosive nature of plasma than that of a human’s because Harkness’ arm is still attached, but to avoid serious muscle damage, he’ll need to wash the plasma off with water. 

“Let him go and back away or the next one will be in the back of your head,” Ellie says, voice surprisingly calm in the face of the amount adrenaline that must be coursing through her veins.

“I’d do as the lady says,” Nick adds, the sound of his gun cocking emphasizing his words. 

There’s a moment where Deacon is certain that Harkness is weighing the satisfaction of killing him against the possibility of death. In the end, he releases Deacon and steps back. Deacon gasps for breath as his legs wobble and give out, the pain in his wrist suddenly making him lightheaded as cotton fills his ears and his vision dims. Nick catches him, preventing him from hitting the ground, and Ellie keeps Deacon’s plasma pistol trained on Harkness. 

It takes a few moments for sense to return to him, and Deacon impatiently shakes his near fainting episode off. 

“Don’t shoot him,” Deacon says to Ellie.

“He tried to kill you. _Again._ ” Ellie replies with a growl.

“I know and I deserved it.”

“The hell you did—” Nick starts, but Deacon holds up his good hand to stop Nick.

“I’m sorry,” Deacon says to Harkness, “I was young, and stupid, and _angry,_ and I didn’t consider what it meant to send you back to The Institute, back to bein’ their slave—” Deacon can feel both Ellie and Nick staring at him in surprise. “—I didn’t really understand that you were more than just a Mr. Handy. Don’t forgive me, if that’s what you want, but know that you were the only one.”

Harkness looks at him for a moment (searching for something maybe, but Deacon’s isn’t sure), clutching his damaged arm close to his body. “I suppose you were my punishment for being a coward and running away when I should have stayed and aided others,” he replies, pain and anger clear in his voice, “but I don’t forgive you for it.”

Deacon nods, unsure if he regrets giving Harkness his memories back or not. Then, he says to Nick, “I think we should see Sun now,” careful to not look him in the eye. 

“He’s not goin’ anywhere kid, not with that look on his face.”

“That plasma will eat through his arm if it isn’t washed off-”

“Good,” Nick snaps. “Then, maybe next time he’ll know better than to attack the people that helped him.”

Harkness scowls. “Perhaps if he returned _you_ to The Institute, you wouldn’t feel so generous. Gen 2s aren’t repurposed, they’re destroyed.”

“With about as much concern for their lives as you, no doubt, showed for all the Railroad agents you killed,” Nick replies tightly.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know any better.”

“And neither did he.”

“He should have!” Harkness shouts and Deacon winces.

“Yeah, maybe, but if you were the first synth he met, how could he’ve? How could you’ve known better than to do as those goons from the Institute ordered until you understood just what that meant?” Nick gestures to Ellie to lower her weapon. “I think we need to start again here, all of us.” 

Ellie looks between them and Harkness and then lowers Deacon’s plasma pistol. Harkness gives Nick’s words some consideration before he nods in agreement. Deacon gives his own, short, pained nod, and Nick gives them all a faint smile. 

“Ellie, please go get the bucket from the washroom,” Nick says and Ellie quickly leaves to retrieve it. When she returns, she dumps the water on Harkness’s side to wash the plasma off. Judging from the look on her face, Deacon guesses that it’s gruesome sight and he wonders if Harkness will get full use of his arm back. 

Nick lets go of Deacon, making sure he can stand on his own first, and then unbuckles his coat and hands it to Harkness. “Better if you don’t walk down to Sun’s clinic with that on display.”

Harkness accepts Nick’s coat with a nod—Nick’s coat has been on more people than it has been on the detective himself, lately. Deacon checks the bucket to see if there is a little water left in the bottom, and cups a hand to capture it and wash the spackling of plasma off himself. Then, Nick takes Deacon’s arm again in support and starts to lead them out of the agency.

“I can walk by myself, ya know,” Deacon says.

“You’re bleeding,” Nick replies as if that’s the only reason he needs. Deacon lifts his good hand up to touch the back of his head and hisses. He can feel the blood getting matted in his hair.

Ellie walks in front of them and stands just behind her desk as they go by. His plasma pistol still clenched tightly in her hand, but lowered, as Nick had asked. Deacon pulls away from Nick for a moment, because he’s not sure he’ll remember to do this after he’s been doped up on Med-X, and moves around Ellie’s desk to pull her into a one-armed hug. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

That’s all the encouragement she needs to burst into tears and wrap her arms around him, careful not to jostle his arm. He feels like an ass because he hasn’t even had the opportunity to talk with her about Tom; it’s just been him, him, him, ever since he got back into town. It’s a wonder he even has friends. 

“Nick,” Deacon calls, “lock up; Ellie is coming with us.” He leaves his arm around her shoulders and pulls her along as she wipes the tears from her face. 

In the Mega Surgery Center, Indy is visiting with Magpie when Sun leads them down with an exasperated look on his face and a pointed glance at Nick. Sun directs Deacon to sit on the low cabinet in the room, and for Magpie to get up off the gurney so Harkness can take her place. Nick moves back near the stairs, so he’s out of Sun’s way and because Deacon knows it affords him the best view of the room. Ellie hovers between Deacon and Harkness, torn between helping the Courser and her new wariness of him.

“What the hell happened, boss?” Magpie asks as Indy helps her up. There’s a stiffness in her movements that clearly says she isn’t ready to head out of town yet, but there doesn’t seem to be much pain—Sun knows his trade. 

“Oh, ya know, the usual,” Deacon replies in a voice that fails at being cheerful and sounds entirely too tight with pain. “A minor disagreement about the merits of Tolstoy writings. Nothing serious.”

Sun cracks the barest hint of a smile at his comment as he directs Harkness to show him his injury.

“Doesn’t fucking look like it, Dee,” Indy says as he helps Magpie take a seat next to Deacon.

“No? Huh. I was so sure that’s what this was about.”

Indy scowls, eyes flicking to Harkness. A clear indicator that while he might not know the details of what happened, he has guessed the broad strokes. 

“Indy,” Deacon says, drawing his attention. “I need to go back to our camp and let them know Magpie and I are going to be delayed in returnin’. The others have probably made it back by now and are wonderin’ where the hell we are.”

Indy glances at Magpie and then says, “Today?”

Deacon nods, he’s had about enough of talking and is frankly ready for a bit of Med-X, but he’s got to finish this. “There’s enough daylight left and the roads around Diamond City are usually pretty clear. I’ll make sure Sun gives you some stims, and you can get ammo from Commonwealth Weaponry.”

Indy gives a quick nod of understanding.

“Take Magpie with you and introduce her to your bunkmate. She’s probably dying to stretch her legs,” Deacon looks at Magpie. “Right?”

She nods, eagerly. Good. The fewer witness around for his Med-X fueled blather, the better.

Over by the gurney, Sun is busy fixing Harkness’ damaged arm, cursing under his breath every once and while—Harkness isn’t making any noises of pain and his rather blasé look suggests Sun gave him some Med-X while Deacon wasn’t looking. It took Deacon several months to walk without a limp after he got hit with plasma backsplash on his hip, and he guesses that Harkness will have a long road of recovery before he gets any real strength back in his arm. If he ever does. 

“What should I say about Olivia?” Indy asks, voice dull. 

And there’s the million-cap question. “I’ll trust you to use your discretion,” he says flicking his eyes toward Harkness, “and I’ll talk to them about her when I get back, but don’t say anything about our new pal.”

Several different emotions flick over Indy’s face, but in the end, he decides not to comment on Deacon’s order. “I’ll go get my stuff.”

Magpie slides off the table, and though Indy is near she doesn’t seek out his support. He stays close to her, however, in case she needs a helping hand. As they’re heading toward the stairs, Harkness catches Magpie's attention.

“Hey, uh…thanks. For killing Zimmer.”

For the briefest moment, Sun’s hands stutter in their work as Harkness mentions that name. However, it’s so brief that Deacon questions seeing it because a second later it’s like it never happened and Sun’s movements are sure again. Deacon files the reaction away to be looked at again when he isn’t in so much pain and glances over at Magpie in time to see her give Harkness a wide grin. 

“Anytime, big guy,” she replies with a wink. Indy rolls his eyes and gives her a light shove. She returns it with the immediacy that Deacon’s only seen between siblings, and the two of them are gone a moment later. 

Silence falls in the clinic. 

Nick lights a cigarette and it’s so quiet that Deacon can hear the metal lid of his lighter click closed. 

Ellie takes Magpie’s empty spot next to Deacon on the cabinet and that’s the only noise for several minutes aside from Deacon’s measured breathing. He hesitates to call it ‘laboured’ because he can breathe just fine, but he is paying extra attention to every inhale and exhale because the focus helps with the pain. 

“Do you want Med-X now?” Sun asks without taking his eyes from his work. 

It’s a delicate process of using partial stimpak injections to regenerate tissue and then moulding it back into place. Something similar was done on Deacon by Madison Li once upon a time, two full stimpaks at a time. It took several days for her to regenerate the flesh on Deacon’s hip as she wasn’t willing to risk any more injections than that. 

Sun’s almost through his first injection, and Deacon figures he’ll stop at two as well.

Deacon wants to say “Yes,” to that question, but he can’t fall apart with Harkness still in the room. He’s hoping that Sun will declare Harkness fit enough to leave the clinic until his next treatment in a day or so, and allow Deacon to hallucinate in peace. 

“I’ll wait,” he replies tightly and Ellie curls her hand around his in solidarity.

Sun makes a noise of acknowledgement and again the room is silent. 

Deacon has counted off 304 inhale/exhale cycles by the time Sun has finished administering the second injection, wrapping the mess that is Harkness’ left triceps and creating a temporary sling for his arm. Sun presses a Med-X syringe into Harkness’ hand.

“You only get the one; use it wisely,” he says, then turns on his stool to face Deacon. “Now you.”

Deacon nods and stands from the cabinet as Harkness gets his feet back under himself as well. 

“Ms. Perkins, please see that Mr. Harkness finds someplace quiet to rest,” Sun says, giving Ellie a look of something along the line of ‘Take him away so that I can fix this idiot’s wrist and not have to worry about two problems at once.’ “ _Dee—_ ” Deacon hadn’t even noticed Indy’s slip until just now. _Shit_. “—will undoubtedly need your help getting across town again, so kindly return when you’re done.”

Ellie nods and she slips off the cabinet. Nick’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t speak. They all agreed to start again with Harkness, but that doesn’t make sending Ellie off with him any easier.

“Also, there are stims in that cabinet—” Sun points to the metal cabinet on the wall opposite the gurney. “Please take three and give them to Mr. Indy.” 

It’s almost like the good doctor actually cares that Deacon is going to be off his rocker and wants to limit the number of people present for it. Bless him. 

She quickly grabs the stims and then returns to Deacon’s side for a moment.

“If it’s anything like last time,” Ellie says, voice quiet and a small smirk on her face, “you’re going to need all the help you can get.” 

“If there’s a sweet roll at the end of it, I’ll let you have your wicked way with me.” Deacon replies and she laughs. 

Ellie follows Harkness as he heads toward the exit. She stops next to Nick to give his hand a reassuring squeeze before continuing up the stairs. Deacon knows that she didn’t put his plasma pistol down in the agency, but rather tucked it into one of the pockets in her skirt. Never let it be said that Ellie doesn’t learn her lessons quickly. However, Deacon doesn’t believe that Harkness will do any harm to her. The only one he’s truly mad is Deacon.

Nick crosses the room to help Deacon on to the gurney. He’s out of energy to struggle one-handed up on to the thing, and Nick’s aid is appreciated. Sun rolls forward on his chair, pulling his small table with him. 

“A half dose, doc,” Deacon says as Sun pulls out a Med-X syringe from the Vault-Tec lunch box that seems to house the drug. 

Sun gives him an impatient look. “A half dose won’t be enough to fully dull the pain while I examine and then shift the bones in your wrist.”

“You remember what I was like with a half dose, right? I’ll be a slobbering mess with a full one. I can handle the pain.”

Sun considers him for a moment and then says, “Alright.” 

Deacon relaxes, grateful to not have to fight with Sun on this. The doctor checks for a prominent vein on Deacon’s right arm because the drug will work quicker injected directly into the blood than it will if it’s given near the site of the break. When he finds one that meets his needs, Sun gently presses the needle in and depresses the plunger at an even pace. 

“Nick,” Sun says, “stand here for a moment.” He rolls his chair to the side slightly, careful not to jostle the injection, as he points for Nick to stand in the spot he was a moment ago. Nick moves into the area and looks at Sun for further direction. “Don’t let him kick me,” Sun instructs as his grip tightens on Deacon’s arm and he continues administering Med-X.

Immediately, Deacon attempts to pull back, but with Nick standing in the way and Sun’s snake-like grip, he has little leverage. The Med-X is quickly starting to work on his coordination and it’s hard to find the right sequence of muscle movements to get him away from Sun and his damn Med-X. He must flail semi-successfully, though, because Nick grabs his legs. 

“You agreed!” Deacon snaps with as much force as the quickly forming Med-X haze allows.

Sun looks him square in the eyes as the plunger reaches the bottom of the syringe. “I lied.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seppuku, also known as hara-kiri, is a Japanese form of ritual suicide and performed to avoid a dishonorable death.
> 
> As per usual, this arc is turning out to be longer than I thought.
> 
> So, Piper/Arturo is the only couple, other than Deacon/Nick and Dez/Sly Nick, that I can agree with myself on. (There is one other but it hasn’t yet been mentioned, so I don’t want to say just yet what it is) Everyone else is like this hodgepodge of possibilities of being with someone or without someone -which isn’t a bad thing, cause one is NOT the lonest number. Basically, I have no idea what I’m doing in regards to couples in the Commonwealth…
> 
> Also, Nick keeps taking over chapters that he’s not supposed to. 
> 
>  
> 
> _“One chapter, Nick, I was supposed to be one right at the very end. I had it all planned out-”_
> 
>  
> 
>   _“Is it me or you puttin’ the kid through all this crap? Someone’s gotta be the voice of reason ‘round here.”_
> 
>   _“…But, but, I had it all planned…”_
> 
>   _“Yeah? Well, so did Jack, and look how well that’s worked out.”_
> 
>  Nick doesn’t care about my plans, folks. He just doesn’t care.


	20. Interlude: Olivia's Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being the town snoop and rebel isn't always a bad thing.

Piper leans against the corner post of John’s barber shop, smoking. Nat doesn’t like it when she smokes in the house so she tries to keep her habit confined to the outdoors. One of these days she'll keep that promise to Nat and cut back, but today is not that day. 

She was having a good-natured chat with John about any gossip that he might be willing to let slip, but Hawthorne came by for his usual 'just back from another grand adventure and my hair's gotten all unruly' appointment and stole all John’s attention.

Piper likes Jay Hawthorne; he’s easy-going and always has an interesting tale to tell about his travels. Hell, he could probably tell an uninteresting one and people would love it because Jay knows how to spin a yarn. It must be nice to have enough wealth to wander the Commonwealth indiscriminately, instead of wondering if there are enough caps to cover food _and_ a pack of cigarettes. 

Now that’s she more or less being ignored, Piper’s full attention lands on the market. Well, a specific shop in the market, if she going to be honest with herself. She can feel the heat rise to her cheek as she recalls the conversation she had with Nick yesterday. He hardly even mentioned Arturo and she was a sputtering mess. So much for a hard-nosed reporter. 

“Piper,” she mutters to herself, “you’ve got it bad.”

She pulls out her pocket watch and checks the time. It’s a little after 1 p.m. Piper tucks it way again and looks back across the market. Diamond City Surplus is still empty. It’s odd. Normally, Arturo returns a few minutes early after lunch if the market is slow like it is today. If it’s busy, she’s pretty sure the man doesn’t eat all day. 

Not that she’s _spying_ on him or anything. No, sir. Not her. It’s just that she happens to spend a lot of time in the market while she’s running leads on new stories, or down in the Dugout Inn to talk with caravanners, and maybe, just _maybe_ she is occasionally the annoyingly-snoopy person everyone thinks she is. 

Piper snuffs out her cigarette with a huff (making sure to pocket the butt because if Nick catches her stamping it out under her boot, he’ll give her that look and then she’ll have to pick it up off the ground in full view of everyone -the damn synth has a better grasp on civic decency than most humans), she’s a grown woman, damn it, not some doe-eyed teen who can’t express herself properly so she has to sort through her crushes possessions like some creepy stalker. 

(Not that she’s done that, exactly, mind you, but eavesdropping is sort of the same, right?)

Except, every time she ends up talk with Arturo, and it’s a fair amount since Nat and Nina have become fast friends, she says the dumbest things and isn’t half as clever or witty or smart as she knows she is. He must just dread talking with her. Like: ‘What that weirdo, Piper, going to blather on about today?’

Oh, God…what is wrong with her? Why can’t she get over this feeling? This feeling that makes her insides squish and flutter; that makes her heart race and her cheeks flush; that turns her mind to mush and makes her incapable of rational thought. It’s awful and there’s nothing she can do about it. It’s utterly beyond her control of stopping or controlling. Even acknowledging it only makes it worse.

And yet, she seems to do whatever she possibly can to be in his presence so that she can suffer more fully in this range of emotions that defy her at every turn. _Why?_

Piper considers lighting another cigarette because this line of thought is stressing her the hell out, but there are only three cigarettes left in her pack, and she’s got to make them last until the end of the week. Instead, she pulls out her pocket watch again to look at the time; it’s a quarter after now and Arturo still isn’t back at his shop. That’s really weird.

She pushes off the corner post of John’s shop and heads out into the market. Curiosity has gotten the best of her, as it always does, and she needs to figure out just what is keeping Arturo.

The shop is bare. All his merchandise has been locked away while he’s gone. Not surprising. Piper checks the counter looking for anything that might indicate where he’s gone, or if he thought he’d be gone long, but there isn’t anything other than the folded cardboard sign that says he’ll be back after lunch. 

“Your clock broken or somethin', Arturo?” Piper wonders under breath.

She moves away from the stand after a moment, not wanting to linger too long and have Myrna swoop down on her like some Old-World falcon, and accusing her of scoping out the place to later steal something. Which she would never do. Piper would rather go without than stoop to stealing, but Myrna really doesn’t like her (probably because Piper calls her crazy on a regular basis) and it’s better to avoid raising her ire so high that she adds Piper's name to list of people Percy's programmed not to barter with.

Piper heads down the street, past Moe, and says ‘Hello’ as she goes by. He asks her, like he does every time she walks by, if she’s changed her mind about buying a swatter. She lets him know, again, that she hasn’t. Beating someone to death with a baseball bat doesn’t appeal to her in the slightest, let alone a squishy feral ghoul or a giant radroach. Ugh. _Gross._

She rounds the corner of Moe’s shop and heads down Third. She probably won’t knock on Arturo’s door or anything, but she might stare at it for a while and wonder if it's possible to get irradiated just enough to get x-ray vision. At his door, the little flag on his mailbox is down, not that there’s much mail to be had around this place, and the door itself is closed. She doesn’t try the handle, even though it’s probably unlocked, because it would be just her luck that the moment she put her hand on it, Arturo would open the door from the inside, and she would be left stammering and sputtering about why she was at his door. 

Piper stands on the worn welcome mat for a moment, listening for any activity inside. There are a pair of voices speaking, but they're muffled and indistinct so she can’t be sure if Arturo is home. It makes sense that he is, though. Where else would he be? She nods and tells herself that she’s satisfied with that. She’s not, but what’s she supposed to do? Knock on the door and be like: "Hey, I noticed that you didn’t come back from lunch ‘cause I keep a pretty close eye on your schedule and I was wondering, in a _totally not_ creepy way, if everything was okay?"

Yeah. Fat chance.

She’s about to turn from the door and head back when a breeze whips down the street, ruffling her hair and carrying a very distinctive laugh. Piper turns, looking down to the farms, wondering what Arturo could be doing there at this time of day. She waffles a moment, trying to decide if she should continue to investigate or leave it alone before she turns on her heel and heads toward the noise. Piper has never been one to leave an investigation unfinished. 

Once she exits out of the street and into the farming area, Piper glances around trying to spot Arturo’s dark hair amongst the various farmers that are working. She wanders on the paths through the area, looking this way and that, and then, she sees him. Arturo is standing near the woodpile for the pyres, he’s leaning against the shelving unit that holds the few clay urns that are stored there, his back to hers, and talking with one of the farmers. She thinks the farmer's named Jason, but she doesn’t have much reason to interact with them, and so she isn’t sure.

Maybe Jason spots her and waves her over. It isn’t something that people do very often anymore. Most of the time they avoid eye contact. Granted, the transient farmers don’t really care one way or another about Diamond City drama, so he probably doesn’t know any better.

“Hey Piper,” Maybe Jason says, leaning forward slightly on his shovel, “perfect timing. I’ve just told all my best jokes and at the risk of sounding like a bore, I’d better get back to work. So, instead of leaving Art here to carry out this macabre task alone, why don’t you keep him company?”

Piper narrows her eyes at the man and wonders how many of them heard her and Nick’s conversation yesterday. (She knows she isn’t exactly _subtle_ in her crushing on Arturo, but dear lord, does everybody know?) However, there doesn’t seem to be anything other than guileless honesty in Maybe Jason’s face.

A second later there’s a shout from the nearest farm plot. “Oi! Jason!” Then a man holds out his wrist and taps it, indicating that Jason is late in returning to his work.

“See?” Jason says with a smile and turns to go. “Catch ya at the Dugout, Art.” 

“First round's on you,” Arturo calls back and shifts to fully face her. “Hey, Piper.”

“Arturo,” she replies and then flounders trying to think of something else to say.

“Ya know, you don’t have to listen to Jason. If you’ve got something else to do right now, don’t let me keep you.”

“What? No. I’m free as a bird...er, well that is, I don’t have anything to do right now. I mean, I should probably be writing, deadlines comin’ up, ya know? But I was outside havin’ a smoke and I noticed that you weren’t back from lunch, and-” _Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking._ “-here you are. Doing…this. _Yeeaah_ , I’ll just go now.” 

Piper turns on her heel, making a face of utter dismay at her verbal idiocy when Arturo’s voice makes her stop.

“They make these in Quincy, ya know,” he says, and Piper looks back to see what he means. Arturo is looking at the clay urns. “There’s kiln just outside town, built from the stone from the nearby quarry.”

“Oh? I didn’t know that,” Piper replies. There’s something odd about Arturo’s voice. “I just figured Sun just dealt with some caravanners from Bunker Hill.”

“No. The family who makes them doesn’t have any signs or adverting, but every major settlement buys from them.”

“That’s word of mouth for you, better than any fancy sign.” 

Arturo doesn’t seem to have heard her. “When I lived in Quincy, I had to go and…and pick one out for Jessica. After she died.”

Suddenly, there’s a vice around Piper’s heart. She lets a strange, low wheezing sound.

“It’s tough, ya know? Trying to get things like together after someone dies; you just wanna fall part, but you gotta hold it together long enough to do one last thing for them.” His eyes flick to hers, soft and sad. “Rhett’s lucky to have people around here to help him with this, it’s hard to do it alone.”

“Yeah,” Piper agrees, thinking of her dad’s death and how there were a lot of people at the burning of his pyre, but how, clinging tightly to Nat’s coat, she felt so alone.

Arturo reaches out and skims a hand over the several of the pots. “Figured I could help a friend out with this.”

“You don’t think that maybe Rhett would want to pick one out?”

A smirk quirks the edges of his mouth, revealing the dimple in his cheek. “He’s not exactly in the right frame of mind for this right now.” Then, he looks to the cement block’s still stacked in the fallow farm plot and the smirk slides off his face. “Besides, she shouldn’t stay out there any longer.”

Piper reflexively puts a hand in her pocket to pull out her smokes and as her hand wraps around them, she realizes what she’s doing. She crushes the pack slightly in annoyance and pulls her hand back out. She’ll just have to deal with this stress the old-fashioned way.

“So,” she says reaching for the first clay urn on the shelf, “you think Rhett will mind two friends helping?”

Arturo catches her wrist and Piper freezes. Her heart suddenly beating a mile a minute. 

“Didn’t anyone teach you how to pick one out?” he asks with a slight laugh in his voice. Like he’s amused that she’s so eager to start. “You don’t just grab the first one you see.”

“Okay...so what do you do?” Piper hopes that sounds vaguely annoyed instead of hopelessly breathless. _He’s touching her!_ How else is supposed to sound?

“When I went to pick out Jess’, one of the daughters of the woman who run the place took me out and showed me their finished urns,” Arturo begins, placing Piper’s hand on the urn she was about to grab, “She told me that even though they all look the same-” he moves her hand to the next one and Piper isn’t sure she’ll hear him over the pounding blood in her ears “-they each have unique imperfections caused by the hand that made them and strengths from the fire that forged them.”

Arturo moves her hand to another one and then lets go of her wrist. Piper lets her hand skim over the remaining urns considering his words. The urns are about the size of a large cooking pot at their widest and narrow gracefully at the bottom. Each has a pair of handles with a modest deco where they meet the body of the urn and have a fitted lid with a shallow nob at the top. To her eye they all look the same.

“That makes them sound like people,” Piper remarks after a moment.

“Helps to think of them like that, like you aren’t just picking some lifeless pot, but something that represents the person who’s gone.”

Piper looks up from the urns; this decision is suddenly feeling extremely important and she isn’t sure she’s the right person to be doing it. “I didn’t even know her. How can I choose the right one? How can we?”

“We know Rhett. We know the kinda person he is, and they were friends. That’s enough.”

She’s still hesitant to pick one. What if she picks the wrong one? What if Rhett looks at it and just knows, the way Arturo seems to, that this urn doesn’t represent his friend? And besides, how is she supposed to know? It’s not like these things talk. They don’t go, ‘Hey, pick me, I’m a good choice.’ She’s not even sure she could make this choice had she known Rhett’s friend.

Arturo reads her reluctance. “You didn’t do this for your dad?”

“Well considering I was about to just grab the first one I saw, I think it’s pretty obvious that’s a ‘No’,” Piper replies before it dawns on her that she’s never told him that her dad is dead and she looks at him in surprise. “Wait, how did you…?”

“Nat told me.”

Now Piper’s doubly surprised. Nat doesn’t like talking about their dad with anyone, she won’t even let Piper bring him up. It’s always a tense day at their house when his birthday rolls around.

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive. Even I can’t get her to talk about him. Could you get her to do her homework too?”

Arturo furrows his brow slightly in confusion. “Her and Nina always do their homework whenever she’s over.”

“What?! Ugh, that little _shit,_ ” Piper swears before she can catch herself and Arturo starts laughing. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that it’s just that she is really into the whole contrary thing right now and it is bugging the hell out of me. I say yes, she says no, I tell her to do something and she ignores me.”

“She’ll get over it eventually,” Arturo replies, still smiling, “but I’ll remind her to do it anytime I see her, maybe that’ll help.”

“Yeah, until she figures out that you and I are in cahoots.” Piper regrets her choice of words almost the instant they’re out of her mouth, but Arturo doesn’t seem to mind.

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. You’ll be wishing for these days when she starts thinking about boys. Or girls,” Arturo gives her a wicked grin. “Or both.”

Piper groans and covers her face. “Don’t friggin’ say that. I don’t want to think about Nat dating for at least another ten years.”

“Good luck with that.”

Piper gives him a good-natured shove to tell him to shut up, and wonders how he can be so laid back about the idea of Nat dating, because if he’s telling her that, he’s sure as hell thought about Nina dating and how is any dad okay with that? Arturo is a really nice guy, but you don’t end up with a such a wide-ranging knowledge of guns and not know how to use one -ooh, maybe that’s the reason he’s okay, he’ll just shoot any asshole who messes with Nina. 

Not a bad plan, as plans go, though they might frown on that in this town.

“So,” Arturo says, drawing her attention back to the urns, “What’da think? I’ve got it narrowed down to this one-” he gestures to one on the top shelf “-and this one.” The second one is on the shelf below. “Why don’t you break the tie?”

Piper frowns slightly. “You coulda said that before; I’m freakin’ out about this over here and all along you’d already, mostly, decided.”

Arturo shrugs. “If you had picked a different one, I would’ve deferred to you.”

“Oh.” Piper flushes slightly under that trust. “…Look, I really don’t think this is a good idea, I mean, this is important and I’d hate to screw it up and pick the wrong one. And Rhett, he -he was _so broken up_ over that girl’s death that it just doesn’t seem right for me-”

“Piper,” Arturo interrupts, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. “Stop thinking for one moment and just go with what feels right. You’ve got a good heart; you can’t go wrong with that.”

Piper blushes full on this time. Sure, she knew that, felt that she had, but it’s different hearing it from someone else, and she hasn’t heard it in a long time. “Okay…okay.” She turns to the urns and stares at the two that Arturo pointed out. “I mean, it’s not like I’m defusing a bomb or anything, right? Just picking out the eternal resting place of someone I’ve never met and hoping that their soul doesn’t come back to haunt me for picking the wrong one.”

“ _Piper…_ ” Arturo admonishes with a laugh.

“Shhh…I know. Just let me think.”

Piper lays her hand on the first urn, wondering if there’s supposed to be an earth-shattering moment of clarity where she knows, somewhere deep inside, that’s this is the one. There isn’t, but maybe it isn’t supposed to happen like that, who’s to say? She lingers on that one for a moment longer, just to make sure, and then moves to the other one. They’re both equally rough under her hand, both without any kind of glaze, just like all the rest, but for some reason, this one feels different. Like the texture is slightly off, or the handle isn’t quite even, or the lid doesn’t fit just right, or she doesn’t know what, because none of those things are true and yet they are. 

For whatever reason, this urn is special in this moment. 

“This one,” she says to Arturo.

“Okay,” he replies. There’s no doubt in her decision, no hint that she’s picked the wrong one, he just lifts it off the shelf and starts over to the cement blocks in the fallow field. 

Piper hesitates a moment before she follows in his wake. It wouldn’t be especially neighbourly of her to leave now, would it? You know, before they got to the hard part. 

It takes them a good twenty minutes to unstack the blocks and restack them next to the wood pile, slowly revealing the burnt remnants of wood and bone. The fire burned a good long time so there isn’t much left aside from ashes, charcoal bits, and bone, so it should be easy to find whatever remains there are. Arturo brings the urn closer and removes its lid. Then, they kneel in the dirt, outside the rectangle of ashes and begin to shift through them, picking out the intact fragments and depositing them inside. 

It’s strange to do this for someone she didn’t know (or anyone really, her dad’s close friends on the Watch did this for them so they didn’t have to), more so because she doesn’t know what the girl’s name was. Nick didn’t say when they talked, it didn’t seem right to ask Rhett during the fire, and that weird, tall guy wouldn’t say anything when she quizzed him on what brought them to Diamond City. 

“What was her name?” Piper asks, hoping Arturo knows so she doesn’t have to keep sifting through the ashes of a stranger.

“Olivia.”

That’s the only conversation have.

Once they’ve found all the large fragments of bone, Arturo pulls out a small, leather pouch and they put the small fragments, like teeth and various other shards in it so they won’t rattle inside the urn. Olivia’s skull goes in last, on top of all pieces and they share a moment of silent prayer before they place the lid on top. Then, Arturo uses a section of leather binding and wraps it around the urns handles and lashes down the lid. He’s about to cut off the excess with a pocket knife when Piper asks him to wait. 

She darts off to where the farmers are tending the hubflowers and picks a healthy blossom. Surely Sun won’t miss one, right? Arturo tracks her progress with interest, and when she returns he shifts out of the way so she can tie the stem of the flower on to the dangling leather binding. Piper thinks it adds a nice touch of femininity to the otherwise plain urn and hopes that one day someone thinks to do something like that for her. 

“Perfect,” Arturo says, and stands, dusting off his knees. “Give me a second, and I’ll just go let Jason know that they can till this field under.”

Piper watches him walk away and then stands as well. Brushing off her knees, and then hands, as she waits. When Arturo returns, he carefully picks up the urn and they head back to Third Street. As they near Nick’s agency, nervousness flairs in her and she has doubts about her choice in urns. Part of her thinks it's crazy because realistically, all the urns look the same, but Arturo’s words about them all being slightly different makes her worried all over again. 

By the time they’re standing in the narrow access hallway of the agency, Piper’s fidgeting in anxiousness. She offers to get the door, but Arturo shakes his head and knocks, which is a bit strange, considering it is the middle of the day. After several moments, Ellie opens the door.

“Hey, Art. Piper,” she says, “Need something?”

It’s odd the way Ellie’s standing in the doorway, kindly, but firmly not allowing them to step inside. Piper wonders if something is wrong, but this doesn’t exactly seem like the most appropriate time to ask. 

“No,” Arturo replies. “Just wanna give you Olivia’s remains so Rhett knows he doesn’t have to go out and collect her.”

“Oh…that’s…” Ellie stumbles slightly, surprised. Then, she gives them both a soft smile. “Thank you. I know Rhett will appreciate that.”

Arturo hands her the urn and then turns to go, ushering Piper along with him, one hand on her arm. The door to the agency closes with a soft click, and Piper’s previous nerves give way to curiosity. What was that all about?

“Is Rhett okay?” Piper asks back out in the street after Arturo has let her arm go so she can think straight. “‘Cause Ellie was acting kinda strange back there. Like, since when do you have to knock during business hours?”

“He’s fine. Just had to see Doc Sun about a broken wrist and the Med-X knocked him right out, so he’s sleeping it off. I think they just decided to keep the traffic to a minimum, ya know?”

“Is that why you decided to look after Olivia? ‘Cause Rhett’s _sleeping?_ ” Something’s off here, but she can’t quite put her finger on it.

Arturo gives an easy shrug. “It’s been a rough coupla days for him. We’re friends, and I figured I’d help. Does it need to be more complicated than that?”

“…No. I suppose not.”

“Thanks for helping. I appreciate it.”

Now it’s Piper’s turn to shrug. “Hey, no problem.”

Arturo gives her a serious look. “No, really, I do. Doing that…it brings up some tough memories and they’re sometimes hard to deal with. Having company helps.”

Piper gives him a smile and ducks her head slightly, feeling a little overwhelmed at that. “Look, I know I’m not the most popular person in town, but I like to think we’re friends and friends help each other. Even if they had no idea they were helping in the first place.”

Arturo chuckles a bit at that, his smile crinkling the corners of his face and bringing out his dimples and Piper’s heart flutters wildly in her chest. She just can't help it; she's totally gonzo.

“You’d better get back to work,” Piper says after a moment, hoping that her voice doesn’t sound too strange. “And I need to get back to my terminal. Those articles don’t write themselves, ya know.”

Arturo nods, still smiling and they head down the street. He stops at his doorway and Piper keeps going, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other so she doesn’t collapse into a burbling heap of giddy emotions. 

“Hey, Piper?” Arturo calls and she turns back to look at him. “We are friends and that will never hinge on your level of 'popularity' in town. I, for one, prefer a rebel anyways.” He gives her a knowing grin before slipping inside his house. 

The smile she wears on the way back to the Publick Occurrences almost cracks her face in half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered posting this as a separate piece within this series, but since it relies so heavily on this story, it seemed like a better idea to include it here, since anyone who's made it this far already has all the backstory needed for this to make sense. 
> 
> I am hard at work on the next real chapter, but I hope you enjoyed this little interlude!


	21. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Age of Aquaaariuus. Aquarius!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;_   
>  _I had it from my father._
> 
> _-Henry VIII (1.4.26)_

With Med-X, sensation is always the first to go (that is the point after all), and it feels as if he’s floating.

Colours suddenly become hyper-saturated and the world moves with wisps and trails as things shift. 

Then, images begin appearing before him, as if in a parody of the ghosts that visited Scrooge. 

That’s a half a dose. 

The light in Sun’s clinic is _too_ bright. It’s like a permeant flashbulb going off or like a flashlight being shone in your face. He winces and tries to move, but he can’t be sure anything has happened because there is no sensation of it occurring. It’s not just that he can’t feel his body moving, it’s that he has no conscious awareness of its position relative to… _anything._

He can’t even be sure that this place _is_ Sun’s clinic. 

There are no defining lines of walls or cabinets or gurneys or even people, it’s just a swirling mass of saturated colours that shift and sway like watercolour paints on a canvas. Even when he closes his eyes (he thinks) against the sensory overload, there are starbursts behind his eyelids and galaxies flit by. The light follows him there; streaking and zooming through the galaxies like Zetan ships through the atmosphere. 

He opens his eyes again, hoping to find a single steady point and the light shifts. 

It becomes a blazing corona around an ill-defined shape that picks up hues of orange and blue, and it’s so much better than being blinded by the light that he almost doesn’t mind the way it shifts and swirls. There’s a noise, familiar and unclear, like a conversation taking place underwater, and he looks around trying to place its source, but he can’t, not in this _mess._

He sways slightly (he thinks), side to side, trying to follow the ebb and flow of the shape before him, hoping to find something steady. There are two pinpoints of yellow, shining golden, like the sun on a hot and clear summer’s day, and he latches on to them. They aren’t steady, but they’re a comfort, nonetheless. As he’s staring at them, wondering vaguely why he’s in this place and if there is something constant and still beyond it, the points of yellow merge and coalesce into something sharp, and definite. 

It takes his brain a moment to process the image. 

It’s a yellow daffodil set in a lapel. 

He draws his gaze up the lines of a crisp and perfect pre-war suit, the charcoal dyed wool shimmering slightly in the brilliant light, past an azure tie impeccably knotted, and up to a clean-shaven face with sharp, watchful eyes that he’s only ever seen in his mind’s eye, and finally out to a face that doesn’t exist because the man wearing it never had one. 

“Eden?” he asks.

The man gives a smile. _“I thought we agreed on ‘JH’?”_

“Uh…yeah, I guess we did.” His tone is hesitant. Though Eden’s words are familiar, he doesn’t remember the conversation in which it was agreed. He can’t remember much right now.

 _“Call me Eden if that’s what you wish. I’m only a figment of your imagination, after all, and not truly the former president,”_ Eden replies with a laugh. _“May I sit with you?”_

He looks around himself in response to that question because he isn’t certain that he is in fact sitting. There doesn’t seem to be anything solid in the murk of churning colours save for the shocking clarity of Eden, which is odd to him as he can’t remember imagining the man with such detail. 

“Am I sitting?” he asks. 

_“Certainly. The good doctor is working on your wrist as we speak.”_ Eden points to a cream-coloured blur that solidifies somewhat into Sun, though his movements are still fraught with trails of colour and he’s nowhere near as distinct as Eden.

“Oh… Right. Well, I suppose if you know where to sit, then I don’t mind.”

 _“Good,”_ Eden replies and takes a seat next to him. As he does, the gurney beneath them is pulled out of the haze as well, as if Eden can dispel it with his presence. 

They sit in silence for a time and Eden watches with some interest as Sun manipulates his wrist, checking for the location of…something (fracture?). He didn’t even realize Sun had his wrist in his hands until Eden drew his attention to it. 

“Why are you here?” he asks. For some reason, he thought he might see his dad—which doesn’t make any sense, his dad is dead.

 _“Were you expecting James, perhaps?”_ Eden asks, knowing his thoughts. _“Or Moira? I suppose anyone would have been better than me, hmm?”_ There’s a hint of laughter in Eden’s voice underlying that easy confidence that he has always envied. _“You needn’t worry about Nick, however. He’s right here—”_ Eden gestures to the bright corona.

The swirling blue and orange slow and stop, forming a hazy Nick. He stares at Nick, trying to figure out why he’s in Diamond City. What happened again? Why is he here? He watches as the pinpoint of orange at the end of Nick’s cigarette flashes brilliantly for a moment and then settles. He looks at Eden.

“You didn’t answer,” he says.

_“Forgive me, Jack. I’m afraid that my presence isn’t anything earthshaking or momentous. You simply happened to be thinking of me a great deal lately.”_

The fog in his head starts to lift somewhat. “Hey, I thought you agreed to call me, ‘Deacon’?”

Eden smirks. _“Indeed, I did, and I will if that’s what you want. You may ‘cower behind an assumed name’; isn’t that how I put it?”_

Deacon frowns and shifts his gaze back to Nick and his cigarette. He wants to find comfort in a familiar sight, but the haziness of everything except Eden is frustrating. “I remember. And you’re right, I realized that, but I can’t give it up.”

_“Can’t or won’t?”_

“…Both, I guess. I’ll wear the label of ‘coward’ if it means the past stays where it belongs, but I also have to fix the bits that shove their way into the present. Like Harkness.”

Eden hums his agreement. _“And The Brotherhood?”_

Deacon looks at Eden, suddenly very aware that he isn’t talking with the man at all. Maybe because he knows that Eden doesn’t have a form like this. Maybe because he also knows that ‘Eden’ doesn’t truly exist anymore, and yet he can’t get over thinking of JH like that. 

“Radio dish,” he replies, pointing at Nick. Well, he thinks he’s pointing at Nick. 

_“I suppose then, that we’ll be speaking in person soon enough.”_

“Yeah…” Deacon sort of laughs. “Well as ‘in person’ as it gets when you talk to a computer.”

Eden smiles as well. _“Perhaps then, you should consider scrounging up some speakers. Then, you wouldn’t just have to hear my voice in your head.”_

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

_“And yet I mentioned it, so you’ve obviously been thinking about it.”_

Deacon can’t deny that. However, it’s one thing to acknowledge that he needs Eden’s help should his plan fail—scratch that. His plan was shit, and now he has to rethink it. That means considering everything again. He’d like to start now, but his brain won’t cooperate beyond simple thoughts, it won’t let him think about anything outside this moment.

“Yeah. Hey, listen, would you mind being Moira for me? I need to ask her advice.”

_“Of course.”_

Deacon looks away from Eden, his eyes landing on Sun. The doctor is methodically wrapping his wrist in bandages, making sure to keep them even and straight as he winds them around Deacon’s wrist and up between his thumb and forefinger. It’s very strange to watch because the motion of Sun’s hands leave wispy trails that form a constant whirl around his wrist, and though he realizes that it is his wrist, Deacon can’t feel the appendage. It’s like it’s become Schrödinger wrist: both his and not his. 

Suddenly, a pair of strong arms throw themselves around his neck and he’s pulled into a hug. His brain is happy to supply him with imagined sensations in lieu of real ones. 

_“Jackie!”_ Moira exclaims, _“My little Wanderer! Where the heck have you been?”_ She kisses his cheek and Deacon laughs, a wave of happiness washing over him.

Is it possible to have _too good_ of an imagination?

“Oh ya, know…north. At the coast.”

_“How’s the weather up there? Does it rain a lot? What’s the plant life like? Oo! Are there any weird mutated creatures there?”_

“ _Giant_ mosquitos and scorpion flies,” he replies, matching her enthusiasm because it’s nearly impossible to be anything else in her presence. Moira leaks upbeat cheerfulness like a two-hundred-year-old factory leaks radioactivity.

Moira’s face falls slightly. _“I don’t have anything about that in the Guide! Maybe I should come visit and we could do research together!-”_ Deacon’s heart clenches painfully, _“-I don’t want people to underprepared for the creatures of the Wastes. That could be dangerous!”_

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. They’re survivin’ and your magazines help, even if they don’t have the ‘Wealth’s specific creatures.”

_“Well…if you think so.”_

“Yeah, I do.”

He’d rather not talk about his idle fantasy of seeing Moira again. Especially not with this too real image of her. 

_“Uh, Jack…I think that nice android over there is trying to get your attention.”_ Moira points to Nick and Deacon turns in time to watch as Nick wraps a careful hand around his chin. 

“Kid,” Nick says, keeping his voice slow and clear, “Sun’s all done. Time to head home.”

 _“To the Capital?”_ Moira asks with far too much eagerness in her voice. Deacon must have echoed her words because Nick gives him a sad sort of smile.

“That’s a bit too far to travel today, and you gotta a radio dish to look for, remember?”

Right. Eden. The Brotherhood. Responsibility. Culpability. Accountability. 

“All those pesky ‘bilities’,” Deacon mutters. 

_“Oh well, let’s make the best of it,”_ Moira says as she hops off the gurney. _“We can talk about Eden when we get back to nice android's house. Oo! Maybe, we can even use that shower. That’d be so great, right?”_

Deacon watches as she slips around Sun with a bemused smile, then his gaze flicks to Nick. He’s still a blur of colours in the general haze of everything, but Nick’s eyes have grown steady in the interim. 

“Don’t suppose you can walk, eh, kid?” Nick asks with a smirk, moving his hand from Deacon’s chin to his arm. Nick turns slightly to look behind him. “Ellie, need a hand here.”

Ellie peers around Nick’s shoulder, a sudden splash of pink in the grey eddy of Sun’s basement clinic. She’s so bright and Deacon winces slightly looking at her. Everything is suddenly too bright. Nick must have moved. 

“Here,” Nick says and pulls Deacon’s sunglasses from his coat pocket. When were they taken off? “Can you put them on, or should I?”

Moira peers around Ellie’s shoulder. _“You’d better let him do it, Jack. Don’t wanna poke your eye out and end up like Billy Creel. Ya know, he always said that a yao guai took out his eye, but I’m pretty sure that it was an unfortunate accident with a pair of glasses. I offered to make him a monocle, but for some reason, he said no. I mean, who doesn’t want a monocle?”_

Deacon starts laughing. Moira actually said that to him once. He’d forgotten about it. 

“You do it, Nick,” Deacon replies after he’s calmed somewhat. “Don’t wanna end up like ole’ Billy Creel.”

Nick shakes his in what could be amusement, since there’s no way for him to follow Deacon’s weird conversations with himself, and gently slides Deacon’s sunglasses on. The blinding light of the room takes itself down from ‘looking directly into the sun’ to ‘someone switched the UV lights on too fast’. It’s much better, but he would like to be somewhere where the lights are as dim as possible. 

“You ready now, kid?” Nick asks. 

Deacon nods and looks at the gurney as he starts to clumsily shift forwards. He can’t feel himself moving, so he has to watch it happen to make sure his brain is sending the right signals. Which is sort of is and isn’t. And that’s why when he slides off the gurney and collapses in a heap on the floor. He may have made it off the gurney, but there is no hope of mustering the coordination that’s needed to walk. Currently, his brain is more engaged in making Moira appear than it is in useless things like walking and tactile sensations. 

“We are not doing this again, Nick,” Ellie’s says from somewhere above him. “Dragging him through town last time when he could hardly walk was bad enough, but this? No. Pick him up and let’s go. I’ll get the doors.”

“Yes ma’am,” Nick replies with a laugh and hauls Deacon off the ground. 

His head lolls around despite his best efforts at keeping it still while Nick settles him in his grip. Past Nick’s arm, Deacon can see Sun looking him with a hint of a smirk as he cleans up and puts his things away. Watching Sun’s movements holds his attention for several moments; the trails of white around him as he moves make it seem graceful, like a dance. It’s pretty. Then Nick moves and Deacon’s head falls back and he watches the ceiling past by in a disorientating mess. 

They make it up the stairs and Nick shifts him somewhat to get them both through the door, and then they're out in the bright sunlight of the summer afternoon. The dazzling colours of the market and the harsh scraping noises as people walk along the boards and chatter to one another is utterly overwhelming. Sun’s clinic seems a haven at this moment and Deacon curls in on himself to try and get away from it all.

“Too much, too much, too much,” he chants to himself, needing something consistent in the clutter. 

Moira suddenly appears in his view, a laughing smile on her face as she hovers over him. She’s steady and clear, and just the right level of loud.

_“This is so much better than last time, isn’t it? A strapping android to carry you across town, instead of wandering across the wastes with no sense of direction or time or, or… anything really.”_

“Synth,” Deacon corrects. “They call them synths out here. And yeah, Nick’s great and that was awful.”

“He’s really out of it this time, isn’t he?” Ellie comments from somewhere just out of his view.

Nick hums in agreement. 

Moira stays in his field of vision as they head out of the market and onto Third Street. She makes comments on everything as they pass. The buildings, the shops, the signs, the people, and gets really excited when they pass the third base marker that’s embedded in the wooden pathway because she realizes that Diamond City is in an old ballpark. Deacon laughs at everything she says, grateful for her presence and yet hating himself for leaving the Capital because this, right here, shows just how much he needs her crazy in his life. 

It takes a bit of manoeuvring to get Deacon and Nick through the narrow hall that leads to the agency’s door, and Moira helpfully tells him to watch his head so he doesn’t hit it on the door jam. Inside, the agency is quiet and lights low compared to the brightness outside. The majority of it is a smear of colour, with Ellie’s pink leading the way, but that’s okay. He doesn’t need to see it to know he’s safe in this place.

Nick takes him around the corner to the private quarters where he sets Deacon down in front of the bed, his feet wholly unsteady under him. It’s only Nick’s strong grip on his arms that keeps him from collapsing to the floor. 

“This is the best place for you to ride this out in, kid,” Nick says as he directs Deacon onto the bed, while Ellie pulls the crumpled blanket out from under him. 

“That’s gonna be a long time,” Deacon replies trying to find the right coordination that will get him settled on the bed against the wall. His limbs are fighting him every step of the way.

“Yeah? How long?”

Deacon looks to Moira.

_“Well…it took you about four hours to get from Big Town to Megaton last time, and by then you were starting to come down. While Med-X has about an 8-hour active period, I think you were mostly sober after six.”_

Deacon relays the pertinent information.

“Oh Deacon,” Ellie says with dismay upon hearing the time frame. “You haven’t eaten anything yet today.”

“S’okay. Not hungry.”

“That you know,” Ellie replies with a sigh and sets the newly folded blanket down on the edge of the bed.

“Nothin’ to be done about it now,” Nick says as he pulls off his tie. “How’s Harkness?”

“Sleeping. I let him stay in my bed—I don’t know what else to do with him. I think the last few days have caught up with him, and I can’t imagine sleeping in that chair has gotten him any real rest.”

There’s a moment of silence that passes between the two of them, and if Deacon could actually see either of them clearly, he might have a better idea of what they were silently communicating. Moira looks between Nick and Ellie, tapping her chin with a couple fingers. 

_“She looks like Amata,”_ Moira announces after a moment.

“Don’t remind me,” Deacon mutters forlornly. 

_“Do you suppose Nick told her you were the reason Tom died?”_

“I…don’t—I don’t know.”

Moira sits on the bed next to him. _“He couldn’t have. She wouldn’t be so nice to you now if she knew. **You** certainly didn’t have nice words for Sarah.”_

“I don’t _know,_ ” Deacon repeats, a little more harshly.

_“Kinda ironic, isn’t it? How things have come full circle. You always thought Sarah arrogant for knowing what was ‘best’ for the Capital and using any means to get there, including sending the Outcasts after Eden. Yet, here you are doing the same thing. I mean, what were the Deathclaws but an exercise in your own arrogance?”_

“Shut up,” Deacon whispers, pulling his legs up as best he can, trying to get away from the words.

 _“You coulda pulled the plug on them anytime, but you just wanted to manipulated them a little more, twist the knife a little deeper before you made yourself known.”_ Moira’s voice gets harsher and deeper. _“It didn’t matter that playing along with them and going to Diamond City was a huge risk for the people there, just as long as you kept your cover.”_

“No. That wasn’t—I didn’t think-”

 _“And there’s your problem, Jack—”_ Oh God, no…please not him… _“—You never think things through. Shall we try and get to the heart of the problem?”_

Deacon glances to where Moira was sitting and finds Braun instead, brandishing a pair of wood shears. Braun is staring menacingly at him and he just knows that those things are meant to for him, that Braun’s going to use them to crack open his chest and pull out his heart just like Deacon did to Jonas in simulated hell. He freaks and tries to scramble across the bed as fast as his discoordination allows him. There are noises of concern above him but they’re indistinct in his panic. He launches himself off the bed, only to be caught. 

For a moment, it doesn’t register that he’s stopped moving. He hasn’t hit the ground, and he looks behind him to see how close Braun is. Deacon finds the man looming over him, so close, reaching out grab and pull him back. He yelps and struggles against whatever it is that’s got him trapped, thrashing this way and that, chanting over and over: “Let me go, let me go, let me go.”

“Nick, he’s gonna hurt himself, just let go of him,” Ellie says frantically from somewhere above him. 

Suddenly, he’s making traction and he scrambles across the room, unsure of where to escape to because he’s hopelessly turned around. Things are sliding across his vision in a kaleidoscope of colours that leave no room for sensory interpretation that makes sense, and in the center of it all, Braun is stalking toward him, as clear and as crisp as he ever was. 

“Eden!” he shouts desperately curling into a ball, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. “Please, Eden—JH, please don’t let him take me back there. _Anywhere_ but there!”

“Kid. Kid!” Nick calls, but he's lost in the swirl. It sounds like he's close, but Deacon can't pick him out.

Braun stalks ever closer, playing with him, drawing it out, and Deacon wants to move away again, find somewhere else to hide, but something is holding him fast and there's nowhere to go. 

“JH, please...” Deacon pleads. He’s nearly given up, and though he doesn’t want Braun to get his hands on him, this might well be his punishment. He closes his eyes. The swirling galaxy is better than having to watch Braun cut him apart. 

Then, he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

Deacon peers at it—knowing that his Med-X soaked brain that he can't actually feel anything, but how it likes to provide sensations for things not there. He follows the arm up to the shoulder, neck, and then the face. _Eden._ Deacon tries to launch himself at JH, going for a relieved _'Oh my God, thank you'_ hug, but he's stopped short again. JH moves his other hand to settle on another shoulder, just in front of Deacon, and suddenly Nick appears out of the haze once again. Frankly, he's just as relieved to see Nick as well, whole and hale. 

_“Perhaps it's better if I remain with you until this is done,”_ JH says, a sad sort of smile on his face. 

Deacon nods, perhaps a bit too emphatically, but JH's smile shifts into something lighter and so he doesn't mind coming off as a loon. Of course, he's making a _figment of his imagination_ feel better, so loon probably still applies. 

_“Also, you may wish to say something to Nick. I don't think he, nor Ellie realize, that that the danger has passed.”_

Deacon looks at Nick. He's still not as sharp and clear as JH is, but he's close and Deacon can see him better than anything else in the room. “I'm okay now,” he says.

He can't make out the fine details in Nick's face to know for certain he's raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but the brightness of one eye seems to increase somewhat so he's going to assume that's how Nick is looking at him. That's how he'd look at himself, anyways.

“Honestly. JH is here now. I'll be okay. Braun doesn't dare mess with him.”

“Kid...” Nick says as both a sigh and an expression of worry. 

“Help me back to the bed?” Deacon asks, knowing Nick won't refuse. 

Nick pulls him off the ground, JH watching from beside him, and Ellie hovering nearby. The bed appears rather suddenly in his view, and though Nick is helping him, he still ends up collapsing face first into the mattress. JH laughs, Ellie makes a noise of dismay, and Nick just rights him. Deacon wishes for this whole exercise in idiocy to be done. He hates this, hates being so useless. This fiasco has cost him an entire day. God, how much longer does he have to cool his heels in this town?

“Diamond City that bad, kid?” Nick asks, amusement in his voice, as he settles Deacon against the wall and takes up the spot beside him.

Deacon blinks and squints at Nick. Apparently is internal dialogue isn't terribly internal; that's almost a worse side effect of Med-X than the hazy world and lack of sensation. 

“I have so much to do right now, and this—” he holds up his wrapped wrist, only certain he has the right one when he sees the white bandage, almost glowing in the haze “—is holdin' everythin' up. 

“Then, stop getting hurt,” Ellie snaps as she tucks the blanket around him. “That would solve all your problems.” 

_“Wise woman,”_ JH says with a smirk as he perches himself on the metal headboard. 

“She's gotta point, kid,” Nick adds.

“I refuse to take the blame for this,” Deacon says, somewhat indignantly, peering at three of them. “I'm not the one who’s ambushin' me.”

“And yet, here you are, hurt. _Again,_ ” Ellie says.

Deacon frowns petulantly. “Still not my fault.”

“Oh? So, it wasn’t you that set that damn robot off? And you didn’t make a sarcastic remark that further fueled the anger he felt toward you?” Ellie crosses her arms and gives him her best glare, and though the fuzziness of her face makes it hard to see, it doesn’t diminish the force of it one bit. 

Okay, maybe he’s sort of at fault for this. He could have just left Harkness as he was—no, he couldn’t have. Still, this is probably more his fault than not. Damnit. Deacon slumps in defeat, clumsily bringing his feet up so he can create a barrier between him and the murky world. 

“Sorry,” Deacon mumbles.

Ellie sits on the edge of the bed. “Don’t be sorry, you oaf. Just stop trying to die. It’s bad enough that one of us mopes around here all day. I can hardly stand myself, so I know I’ll never tolerate Nick doing it too.”

Ellie’s words feel like a sharp jab to his floating ribs. 

“I’m so sorry about Tom,” Deacon blurts, feeling the need to launch into a huge explanation. 

“ _ **Jack,**_ ” JH warns, _“Don’t make this about you. If she wants to forgive you, then let it be her choice, but do not make her pity you into forgiveness.”_

Deacon looks at JH, and after a moment’s argument with himself, he agrees with him. Deacon wants the absolution, but it isn’t right to beg for it. Or to put the onus on Ellie to give it to him if she doesn’t want to. He gave Harkness the choice, so he must give it to her as well.

“I know,” Ellie says and puts a hand on Deacon’s knee. “Maybe we can talk more about it later, but not now. Not like this.”

Deacon nods. That’s probably best because he’s suddenly feeling tired. There’s too much sensory stimulation going on right now and his brain is unable to cope with it all. He doesn’t relish the idea of sleep since it means he’ll wake with a hangover to end all hangovers and he’ll no doubt wish to either a) die, or b) have a minor dose of Med-X to deal with the pain. A little hair of the dog as it were. 

His head lists to the side, coming to rest on a firm plateau just above his own shoulder. Deacon sees Nick’s hand pass into range of his vision and brushes some of his unruly hair out of his face. Maybe he should see John about a haircut.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Nick says. “I kinda like this mop.”

Deacon huffs in annoyance, more so because he has no internal monologue than because Nick likes his hair. Still, he has to be contrary. “Don’t get attached. I’m gonna cut it all off one of these days.”

Distantly, he can hear the door to the agency open and someone call out. Nick and Ellie share a look before she stands and leaves to see who it is. Deacon cranes his head to see around JH as she disappears around the corner.

“Yeah?” Nick says, drawing his focus back. “You gonna go around bald and tell everyone you’re a synth?”

Deacon’s head falls back on what must be Nick’s shoulder. “You do.”

“I _am_ a synth, kid.”

“I could be too. You don’t know. I could be President Eden and you’d never know.”

“I’d know.”

Deacon’s about to poorly argue that point when JH interrupts him.

_“Arturo was the one at the door; he’s speaking with Ellie.”_

He looks to JH, trying to make that name make sense in his brain. “Oh! He has great hair. I wanna have hair like Arturo.”

Nick’s shoulders shake slightly in laughter. “You tell him that.”

“Arturo!” Deacon calls and Nick starts laughing in earnest. “You have great hair! Makes me kinda jealous.”

There’s a moment of silence, only punctuated by Nick’s laughter. 

“…Thanks?” Arturo calls back.

Deacon nods, satisfied, and curls into Nick’s side, sleep pulling at him again. He didn’t get the chance to talk with Moira about JH, but perhaps that’s for the best. He should think about it when he’s sober again and not talking with people that are merely projections of his subconscious mind. Besides, he has a pretty good idea of what he’d say to himself about it:

_You need JH’s help, so you don’t have a choice._

\- - - - -

Deacon wakes briefly sometime later to the sounds of footsteps descending the stairs from Ellie’s room. The noise is like a thousand sharp needles stabbing his brain after getting bashed in the head with a pipe wrench. It’s _agony_ and Deacon carefully pulls the blanket up over his head with a weak groan. 

He’d like to tell whoever is traipsing around so loudly to _fuck off,_ but the idea of the sound of his own words reverberating around inside his head is enough to bring on a sharp wave of nausea. Right now, his _thoughts_ are too loud; he’d never survive actual speech.

The footsteps leave, after what feels like an eternity, and Deacon tries to even out his breathing. If he can find a rhythm again, he might be able to go back to sleep and regain his humanity, instead of being this aching husk of a golem.

\- - - - -

The next time he wakes, it’s to the spicy smell of Takahashi’s noodles and a sandwich of brahmin meat from the local bakery. It’s sitting on a chair that’s been placed next to the bed, and the steam is still rising from the noodles so he knows that it hasn’t been there long. Deacon’s head still aches and he’s sick to his stomach so the idea of eating isn’t appealing, but he’s pretty sure that sensation of nausea will dissipate if he eats, so Deacon pulls himself to the edge of the bed and carefully swings his feet onto the floor. 

The squeaking of the bedsprings alerts Nick, who settles himself against the cinderblock wall just within range of Deacon’s sight. He doesn’t speak as Deacon picks up the noodle bowl and starts with a few careful mouthfuls. His nausea abates as the food settles in his stomach and Deacon decides to go for half of the sandwich.

He loves bread. Mostly because it’s something unique to the Wastes -well, that, and it tastes really good. To him, it represents all the things that the people have managed to reclaim from the destruction of the Old World. Plus, it’s not something they ever had in the vault, so it’s this reminder that the vault wasn’t the pinnacle of all the best days of his life because it’s sometimes hard to remember that.

Even with all the bad he experienced in the Wastes, there was plenty of good too. 

“Howya feelin’, kid?” Nick asks after he’s stuffed half the sandwich in his face and gone back to the noodles. 

“Thirsty.”

Nick pulls a can of purified water out of the pocket of his coat and tosses it on the bed next to Deacon. He grabs it with a nod of thanks and takes several long gulps before setting it on the chair next to the rest of his food. 

“So, how much time did I lose?” Deacon asks, knowing he’s already spent too much time in Diamond City.

“About a day and a half. Not your longest, but…” Nick shrugs. 

“Ha! You don’t know the half of it. So, is it too late to set out for some adventuring?”

“If I said ‘yes’, would you go anyways?”

Deacon considers the question for a moment. “No. Kinda hard to use tools in the dark, but that wasn’t an answer.”

“Just makin’ sure you’re not about to do somethin’ stupid. It’s mid-morning. Plenty of light to use tools in.”

“Or be one in,” Deacon quips with a smirk.

Nick laughs.

“Guess I’d better get crackin’, then,” Deacon says before he starts finishing his meal. “Gotta wrangle some tools from the docs over at the Science! Center, and talk to Charlie about my vest…er- find some caps to pay Charlie for my vest.”

Crap. He left most of his recently accumulated caps at the police station, and the rest are, of course, in Goodneighbour. He’d always planned to send a bunch to Sun via a courier, but Deacon knows Becky won’t let the vest out of her grasp until she’s paid in full. 

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Already taken care of.”

“ _Nick…_ ” Deacon says, tone somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. Damnit, he doesn’t need Nick to pay his debts off in town. 

Nick crosses his arms, slightly defensive. “We both know you didn’t come to town with any caps on you, and I sure as hell ain’t lettin’ you out of these walls without that thing’s protection, so get over it.”

Deacon sighs. “Okay. Sorry. Thank you.”

“Better. I also cleaned your plasma pistol.”

“Well, now you’re just showin’ off.”

Nick throws him a grin and pushes off the wall. “Your things are on the edge of the stairs. Get dressed and let’s go. Don’t wanna burn too much of that precious daylight.”

“Yes, sir,” Deacon says and crams the rest of the sandwich in his mouth.

It doesn’t take much time for Deacon to get dressed and put all his gear on. He notes that the side where Harkness booted him is stiff and twangs when Deacon lifts his arms to slide his shirt off, and then that his leg guards are getting pretty worn out along the seams. If he had the caps he’d go without and leave them with Charlie, but as it is, he’ll just have to look at them later with his own subpar armourer skills.

At least his wrist doesn’t hurt to use anymore, though, like his side, it’s stiff and he’ll have to be careful using it. He doesn’t want to strain the tentative repair. 

Charlie Fallon repaired his vest’s various laser burns with sections of cloth that were clearly from the original cut of the material, however, Deacon didn’t realize how sun faded his vest had become since he first got it. The dark navy of the new material is a stark contrast to the original. At least the metal plates won’t rust exposed to the air and the wet, and that’s all Deacon really cares about. Well, that, and it’s so stylish. 

He heads into the office, brings his dishes with him so he can drop them off as they go through the market, and stops short when he sees a clay urn sitting on Nick’s desk. _Olivia._ For a brief moment, he had forgotten about her, and a wave of guilt washes over him. Some leader he is. Who went out and got her?

Ellie catches his line of sight. “Art and Piper collect her remains yesterday,” she says.

“Oh,” he croaks, unsure of what else to say. 

Harkness saves him from having to come up with a more eloquent answer than that, by asking to accompany them, looking first to Nick, then to Deacon. Nick just shrugs and looks at Deacon, deferring to his judgement.

“How’s your arm?” Deacon asks. 

“Doctor Sun finished treating it this morning.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Harkness frowns somewhat. “It’s…sore, but I need to use it.”

“Can you still hold your laser?”

“Yes.”

Deacon considers him for a moment. Realistically he should say ‘no’ because he could be a liability. Hell, Deacon’s somewhat of a liability with his shooting wrist still healing and Nick doesn’t need to look after another recovering asshole. However, this might be a great opportunity to get a feel for what Harkness thinks now that he’s himself again, and how Deacon should deal with The Railroad fallout from all this. 

“Then get your gear and meet us at Sammy Swatter -that’s the baseball statue outside of town.”

Ellie wishes them luck and hands Nick a couple cans of purified water that he stashes in his pockets as they head out. She tells Nick she’ll watch the home front while they’re gone.

Deacon and Nick head into the market, dropping the dishes off as they go so that Deacon can pick up a couple of stims from Sun. He doesn’t expect there will be trouble travelling to the radio tower, but he can’t say for sure, so it’s best to be prepared. Sun begrudgingly gives him a couple of stims as Deacon tells him to add it to his bill. 

“Which I will pay in full,” Deacon adds, “You just need to tally it up.”

“Rolling in caps, are we?” Sun asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh totally. You should see my 401k.”

Nick snorts. 

Sun’s expression gets dourer -if that’s even possible. “Go, and try not to die before you pay me.”

“Will do,” Deacon replies and tucks the stims away in his tool belt. 

Piper catches them as they go by Publick Occurrences. 

“I see you’re feelin’ better,” she says, standing from her work at the printing machine. 

“Yep. Right as irradiated rain. Though, your press looks like it’s seen better days.”

“Eh, the old girl is fine for her age.” Piper gives the printing press a pat. “But she does like Nat better than me. Apparently, I’m too ‘rammy’.”

Deacon smirks. That about sums Piper up.

“ _Don’t say anything,_ ” Piper warns.

“Who, me? _Never._ ”

“Har, har,” Piper says as she leans against the machine. “What’s so pressin’ that you’re leaving town so soon, hmm? Wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with your weird friend, would it?”

“Gonna have to be more specific than that, Piper. I’ve gotta lot of weird friends. I mean, just look at you.”

“Hey!”

Deacon grins.

“Okay, so maybe I deserved that, but you know exactly who I’m talkin’ about.”

“Well, I can safely assure you that this trek has nothin’ to do with my weird friend. Can’t a guy just have important things to do outside of Diamond City? You’re acting like an Upperstander, thinkin’ there isn’t anything worthwhile outside this place.”

Piper’s eyes narrow. “Cute diversion tactic, Rhett, but name calling isn’t going to get you out of this one.”

Deacon shrugs. “Nothin’ to get out of.”

They stare at one another for a second, but Deacon figures he’s got the advantage with his sunglasses. 

“Fine. Whatever, Rhett. You go, and take your secrets with you, but-” she points a grease-stained wrench at him “-I _will_ find out what you’re hidin’.”

Of that, Deacon has no doubt. 

“Also, you’re an asshole, but I’m glad you didn’t die. Though, I’m sure you deserve it.”

He gives her another grin and tells her to stop saying such sweet nothings to him or he’ll start getting ideas. Piper throws a stack of papers at his head with a smirk, and Deacon takes that as his cue to leave, making his way to the Science! Center. Nick, is notably silent. 

They pass by the Dugout Inn and the people sitting at the outdoor tables. A few send greetings as Nick walks by and he returns them with a nod. Further down on Second Street, Nick pulls Deacon into the alcove next to the warehouse. 

“We’re not gonna have another opportunity alone for a while, so let me say this before we get back into the company of others,” Nick starts. “Don’t go makin’ enemies with your friends.”

Deacon keeps a neutral expression. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

Nick sets his skeletal hand on the corrugated steel wall next to Deacon’s head. “Don’t play dumb, kid. We both know you’re not. She did you a favour yesterday and you’re lucky Piper knows better than to rise to a little bait.”

“Apparently, you don’t.”

Nick lets out a bark of laughter. “You won’t get a rise that easily outta me, _Jack_ -” Deacon bristles “-But pissin’ people off in town won’t do Art any good, or any other of your…friends. You might’ve gotta laugh outta her at the end, but don’t think that comment about ‘Upperstanders’ won’t make Piper obsess about herself for a few days.”

Deacon sighs. He knows that’s what that comment will do, it’s why he said it. So, her attention was on herself and not on him, as manipulative as that is. He also knows that he needs to thank Piper for her help, but he’d also like to pretend for a little while longer that he didn’t get someone else killed. 

“I know. I get it. Don’t be an asshole.”

Nick looks at him for a moment, judging the truth of his words, no doubt. Then, “Good. Now, howa ‘bout we make better use of this space?”

Nick gives him a mischievous smirk and Deacon’s breath catches in his throat. He momentarily forgets to be annoyed that Nick keeps using his real name instead of the one he’s adopted as Nick tilts his head to get the brim of his hat out of the way and kisses Deacon. He leans forward and bracing his weight on his one arm while the other cups Deacon’s neck and pulls him closer. Nick’s mouth needful and urgent on his. 

You’d think for the number of times Deacon had kissed and been kissed that this wouldn’t be so nerve-racking for him, but there’s this lingering dread of letting someone get that close again only to have them taken from him that makes kissing Nick an exercise in controlled panic.

Doesn’t make him want it any less, though, and he slips one arm around Nick’s waist, while the other slides around his neck.

The radiation dust, that Nick never seems to get around to washing completely off, bites slightly at Deacon’s lips, but he opens his mouth under Nick’s all the same and tastes the last cigarette he smoked. The juxtaposition between the dry, artificial mouth that Nick has and the organic way he uses it, has Deacon more than just a little turned on. It’s possible that he might have a _slight_ robotic philia. Not that he wants to sell Nick short or anything, but…

Nick pulls back, leaving Deacon panting in his wake. He’s torn between pulling Nick back down and trying to regain some shred of dignity. However, the fact that he actually has to get something done today tips the scale in favour of dignity. 

“Kid,” Nick rumbles in a voice that makes Deacon’s stomach clench with arousal. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

Deacon smirks. “But what a way to go, amiright?”

Nick huffs a breath of laughter and captures Deacon’s lips again. Softly this time, not with the same hungry urgency as before. His hand moves from the back of Deacon’s neck to the side so his thumb can stroke the soft, stubbled skin under his jaw and Deacon panics slightly. One simple movement will have Nick’s hand around his throat and for all the trust he has in the man, Deacon can’t handle that. Doesn’t trust _that_. He pulls back from their kiss and catches Nick’s hand with his own, pulling it down. 

“Seriously, if you keep doin’ that, I’m never gonna get anythin’ done today,” Deacon says, voice rough. “Or if I do, it’ll be damned uncomfortable.” He squirms slightly to make his point. 

Nick gives him a look that seems to see more than Deacon would like, but after a moment he smirks and backs up, hands in the air as if to mock Deacon and his need to get work done. Deacon straights himself runs a hand through his hair, and licks his lips, trying to dispel the bite of radiation. He can feel Nick’s eyes on him. Satisfied he’s presentable, Deacon heads onto the ramp, and Nick follows. 

Doctor Duff is more than happy to lend Deacon some tools after he reminded her just who he was. She has a bit of a selective memory when it comes to people. Duff could bang on about science notes and facts all day, but try and get her to remember who came by in the last hour? Good luck. Professor Scara is less willing to part with their sockets and wrenches, obviously not trusting Deacon to bring them back, but Nick assures her that even if Deacon doesn’t, _he will._

That seems to placate her enough to allow Deacon the use of the tools. Thankfully, they come in a bag that Deacon can sling over his shoulders because he doesn’t have his backpack with him right now. With the things they need collected, Nick and Deacon head out to meet Harkness.

Nick leads them north-west of Diamond City, following the same path that would take them to Vault 81, however, instead of veering off the road and onto the overgrown dirt road that would take them to the cavern of Vault 81, they follow the road west out of the Boston ruins. It takes them about three hours to reach a large concrete tunnel. The pipes on the inside make Deacon wonder if this was an old pumping station since he can smell the irradiated water of the Charlies River on the wind. 

Nick leads them up a concrete staircase that’s set about halfway through the tunnel, and they climb a couple stores before exiting into a warehouse of sorts. Outside, they start heading north, following a set of train tracks the tunnel supports. Deacon spies a bridge in the distance to the west and glimmering water of the river. 

There’s a train wreck blocking a large section of the tracks that they pick their way around, deking in and out of the lightly forested area surrounding it. After they clear the wreckage, and after poking around to see if anything of value is left, they walk for about another half hour before Nick points to a tower just visible through the trees, and they start trekking through the sparse forest toward it. 

When they arrive, Deacon sets down the tools and begins scouting out the dishes. They all seem to be intact, though slightly rusted. The real problem is that dishes are tucked in close to the tower and trying to manipulate a tool between it at the dishes’ bolts is going to be difficult. He starts checking the various socket heads he brought, hoping the bolts are a common size.

“So, which one do you want?” Nick asks.

“All of them.”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “I thought you just wanted one.”

Deacon steps back from the tower to face Nick. “Well, I need one, but I want all of them. Provided we can carry them back that is. I don’t need the brackets, just the dish and its wiring. I can rig up something later.”

“Why do you need them at all?” Harkness asks.

“Super secret Railroad business, pal, can’t say.”

Harkness frowns at him but doesn’t press further. Deacon is grateful for his previous dealings with the Railroad as he seems to understand that there are some things that must remain secret. Of course, this isn’t strictly Railroad business, but he doesn’t need to know that. 

“So, any ideas on how to get a socket ratchet in between there?” Deacon asks, pointing at the lowest radio dish and the section tower it’s snugged up against. The words are barely out of his mouth when the tower bursts to life and the dishes are hauled up tracks of varying lengths and then extend. 

Huh. Now the dishes are a lot higher off the ground. 

Deacon looks back at the other two and finds Nick standing front of a terminal. Why didn’t he see that? “Well, that solved one problem,” he says to Nick, “but…uh, kinda created another.”

“Did you find the right size socket?” Nick asks. 

“Yeah, 3/4 inch, but-”

Nick holds out his hand for it and Deacon furrows his brows.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Your wrist is still injured, kid, and there no way his arm will support his weight—” Nick tilts his head at Harkness. “I’m the only one capable of this right now. Besides,” Nick steps closer lowering his voice as a smirk curls his lips, “you don’t like heights.”

Deacon frowns. “I never shoulda told you that.” Then he sighs and gives Nick the socket and the ratchet. “Also, I would totally do this if my wrist wasn’t buggered.”

“I know, but we’re partners. That’s why ya don’t have to.”

Deacon’s not entirely sure how to respond to that; it feels like an ‘oh, hell yes,’ or a ‘don’t get attached, Nick’ moment, but he can’t agree on which one to say so he says nothing. Nick understands, though, and gives him a small smile, one that seems to say; ‘This is where I’m at, kid. Join me when you can.’ Ugh, why is Nick so patient with him? Seriously, he would’ve pissed off enough the most sanctimonious of saints by now.

Nick climbs to the lowest dish and starts unbolting it from the track. It’s not like he has to direct Nick in the use tools or even that of this technology so Deacon’s feeling a bit like a third wheel. And if he’s feeling like that, how must Harkness be feeling?

“How do you expect to get these dishes back to Diamond City?”

Ah, speak of the devil.

Deacon glances around at their surroundings. “Well, since I don’t see a Handy unit that I can cajole into working for me, I figured we could each carry one.”

Harkness raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Were you gonna to ask, or just demand that we help?”

“Uh, you volunteered to come on this expedition, pal, and I was gonna… _suggest_ that you were expected to help. At least to Diamond City, anyways.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

Deacon shrugs. “Then leave. There’s wide, wild wasteland out there just waitin’ to be explored, but if ya wanna stick around, then ya pull your weight. Same as any member of the Railroad. But, hey, the choice is yours; do what ya want.”

Harkness stares at Deacon for several long moments, before he turns on his heel and starts heading out into the forest, back the way they came. _Great._ He fucked that up. Now, who’ll carry the third dish? Okay, okay, it not all about that, but he’s not about to baby Harkness because of what happened in the past. That might appease Deacon’s consciousness but it won’t do Harkness any favours. Still… 

Deacon swears under his breath, once he’s sure Harkness is out of hearing range. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Nick says from above him, shifting to the other side of the dish. “He’ll be back.”

Deacon leans against the tower, wincing slightly as a crossbeam catches him in the tender area around his ribs, staring at the spot where Harkness disappeared. “Yeah? What makes you think that, oh wise one?”

“No one can resist the pull of your gravity, kid. Whether they like it or not.”

 _You mean the Lone Wanderer’s gravity,_ Deacon thinks with no little annoyance. “Wow, I think I woulda preferred any reason but that.”

Nick makes a humming noise that suggests something along the lines of ‘too bad, so sad,’ and Deacon sighs in annoyance. They fall into silence for another couple minutes as Nick finishes unbolting the dish from its track. Then, he catches Deacon’s attention and tosses down the socket ratchet. 

“You gotta a pair of wire cutters?” Nick asks.

Deacon crouches to check the tool bag, he’s pretty sure he grabbed a pair—ah, there they are. He stands and hands them up to Nick.

“Maybe keep them in your coat, yeah? I wouldn’t count on me climbin’ up to that second one to hand these off to ya.”

Nick maneuverers inside the track, looking for a point to cut the wiring, pinning the loose dish between his body and the tower. “Not even for the view, kid?”

“Somehow I doubt there’s a view majestic enough for me to risk climbing, or standing, on top of something more than a storey off the ground,” Deacon replies standing to the side of where Nick’s perched to help catch the dish as he comes down, and he starts whistling a few bars of _‘America the Beautiful’_.

Nick chuckles. “Then how do you expect to install these? Not very effective if they aren’t off the ground.”

And there was the million-cap question, folks. How was he going to muster enough courage to go to the roof of Ticonderoga and set these up? Just the thought of it made him queasy. Being up there with no real protection, the wind blowing across the surface strong enough to knock you over or off the edge, and having to find an ideal spot for the dishes while trying desperately not to die. Sufficed to say, he’s not looking forward to it.

“Didn’t think that far, did ya?”

“I’ve been tryin’ not to think about it, which isn’t the same as not thinkin’ about it.”

Nick laughs and Deacon huffs a little, annoyed. Heights are a perfectly sane thing to be scared off, like Coursers, or radiation, or deathclaws. He would’ve gone after those dishes; he would’ve climbed up there even though it frightened him. Hell, he’s gone into a deathclaw’s cage, been irradiated on many occasions, and battled two Coursers and lived. If anything, Deacon has shown time and time again that he’s perfectly capable of facing his fears. 

_Of course,_ the Lone Wanderer tells him, _not the fears that really matter. Oh, no. You couldn’t possible face those._

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose, shoving his sunglasses up slightly, and tries to dispel that thought. 

“Hey, kid.” Nick’s voice draws his attention upward to where Nick is holding the detached dish for him to take. 

Deacon grabs it from Nick’s grasp, wires and all, and sets it down on the ground, folding the three supports for the small focus box down on the dish. It’s not very heavy, no more than five pounds, the aluminium giving the dish strength and lightness. Nick then asks for the ratchet again, promising to keep it in his coat pocket, and heads up and around the tower to the next dish. Deacon watches and wonders what it would be like to not be afraid of heights.

Nick makes short work of the other two dishes. The last one requires him to climb up a few crossbeams on the tower to retrieve the dish from Nick’s hands, but he’s not that far off the ground so it’s not big deal. Really, he lived in Ticon for more than a year and it didn’t bother him…much, though he does feel better when he drops back to the ground again. Deacon inspects the last dish, as he did with the other two, checking for any obvious signs of wear on the dish, the focus box, or the receiver, and then inspects the wiring to make sure hasn’t been corroded. 

Deacon bundles up the sections of wiring and then uses some of Nick’s ‘stimpak’ to tape it to the back of the dish and to tape down the focus box support poles for transport. Now the only thing to do is wait for Harkness to return (if he even decides to). Deacon considers what he’ll have to do get the dishes to Ticon, what he’ll need to get them operational. 

His needs to come up with a large amount of wiring to hook the dishes from their perch on the roof to JH’s system, and an amplifier box to interpret the signals before JH will be able to make sense of the data. A vault probably won’t have the things he needs, but he might be able to scrounge up the parts he needs to build that from an old electronics shop. It would be ideal if there were a robot factory somewhere in the Commonwealth, but Deacon hasn’t found or heard of one and there doesn’t seem to be a RobCo branch in the ruins of Boston for him to check and make sure. 

“Whatcha thinkin’, kid?” Nick asks as he lights a cigarette. 

“I’m thinkin’ this is gonna be more difficult than I thought. Goin’ on a roof is the least of my worries right now.” There’s rusted, metal crate next to the terminal and Deacon pulls it out to sit on. “Don’t suppose ya know where a robot factory is around these parts?”

Nick shoots him a smirk. “I’m guessin’ ya mean one aside from the one I came from.”

“Hey, if you know where the Institute lays its synth-slavin’ head, you let me know. Plenty of tech in there I could put to good use.”

“I don’t doubt it, but I don’t know of any others, or where that one is. But if you’re just lookin’ for tech to scavenge…there’s a Wattz Electronics in Cambridge I think, and…” Nick taps his lips with the fingers holding his cigarette while he thinks. “I remember takin’ a malfunctionin’ terminal to a RobCo service center before the war, but you’re really testin’ my memory here, kid.”

Deacon immediately perks up. Sure, it’s not a robot factory, but maybe there’s mention of one in their terminals. Really, anything RobCo is bound to be more useful than your average tech salvage. 

“Near any landmarks I might know?”

“…I remember traffic was hell on that side of Boston.”

“So…should I look for a bunch of cars on the road?”

“Kid, shut up and let me think. Nick’s memories are faded at best.”

Deacon frowns slightly. “I’m sure _your_ memories are. That’s what happens when you’ve lived for over two hundred years in one form or another.”

Nick hums in agreement, though to which part of that statement, Deacon isn’t sure. Either way, if he wants Nick to remember where this mythical RobCo service center is, then he’ll have to wait until later to remind Nick that he isn’t some convenient copy of another man. It’s the least he can do since Nick is so _damn intent_ on making Deacon whole again. He’s not the least bit ticked off about that. Nope. Not him.

“The airport,” Nick says suddenly. “That’s why the traffic was bad. It’s somewhere near the airport.”

And that’s on the other side of Boston, so it isn’t going to be a journey they’re making today. Of course, they’d be lucky to get back before dark at the rate it’s taking Harkness to return to them. Still, poking around in old RobCo buildings is like Deacon’s second favourite Wasteland pastime, so he’s willing to wait for it. 

Deacon claps his hands together, “Welp, I know what I’m doin’ tomorrow. You comin’ with? Or do ya have cases that need your attention?”

“Kid, if I don’t go with you, somethin’ bad is bound to happen.”

“Don’t jinx it, Nick. Besides, I’m perfectly capable of lookin’ after myself…barring the occasional Courser attack.”

Nick gives him a serious look as a curl of smoke escapes his lips. “Don’t joke about things like that.”

“You did.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

Deacon bristles somewhat. “Do you really think so little of my skills that you imagine I run into trouble every time I step out into the Wastes? I wouldn’t be a very effective agent if that were true. I’ve been fendin’ for myself and lot longer than you and I have known each other. I’ll muddle through. I always do.”

Nick pushes off the tower and crouches on the ground before him. “You shouldn’t have to muddle through, kid, not while I’m around. Partners, remember?-” Deacon gives an aborted headshake because he can’t quite disagree or agree with that. Nick gently catches his chin. “I don’t think little of your skills, you’re a helluva lot of more talented than I am, but every time I see you, you’re hurt, and I don’t like that.”

“I remember, you liked it better when I lived in Diamond City.”

“Yeah, I did. You’ve been through things lately that would crush a lesser man. And I don’t just mean Coursers with strong grips.”

Behind his sunglasses, Deacon closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Nick staring solemnly at him. Like he needs the reminder of what happened with The Deathclaws, or in The Memory Lounger. In fact, he spends most of his days avoiding thinking about it all. 

“There’s no one around to watch your back, kid. No one to make sure that you come back from your missions alive and in one piece. I know you’re gonna run off again, run back to the group that doesn’t have your back, despite all the work you do for them,-” he can hear the frown in Nick’s voice and Deacon opens his eyes again to look at Nick, “-but while you’re here, within my reach, I’ve got your back. Whether you like it or not.”

A reluctant smile breaks out on Deacon’s face at those last words. “Whether I like it or not, Nick? That sounds like a threat.”

“Not a threat. Just a fact.” The gravity Nick puts into his words makes Deacon question again why Nick has so much patience for him. He shakes his head in wonderment. 

“I..I don’t deserve you,” Deacon says pulling back.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, hmm?” Nick replies with a smirk and moves his hand from Deacon’s chin to cup his jaw, but he doesn’t move any closer. Just lets his thumb rasp over the couple day’s growth on Deacon’s face. He’s waiting for Deacon to make the move this time, letting it be his choice.

“You’re makin’ this so easy, it’s almost hard.”

Nick laughs, and that, more than anything, makes Deacon lean forward and kiss him. Nick puts a hand on Deacon’s knee to keep himself steady and Deacon lays his hand over it so he can feel the movement of the skeletal joints as Nick flexes and grips with his hand to keep himself from tumbling forward into Deacon. 

He’d really like to feel what the ragged edges of Nick’s face are like, but that seems too intimate of a move to make just yet. Deacon doesn’t doubt that Nick would let him do that, it’s just that he’d like to live in denial a little longer concerning Nick and leaving and Commonwealth. He’s had enough of self-realization and forcing himself to acknowledge that there are some things he needs to take responsibility for and put right, for the time being. Deacon needs a few lies to cling to in face of that overwhelming knowledge.

Suddenly, there’s a polite cough somewhere in front of Deacon. 

Nick pulls back and Deacon holds back a frown of annoyance as he glances around Nick’s shoulders. Harkness is standing next to the gathered dishes, looking almost bashful -if such an expression were possible on a Courser’s face. Nick shoots Deacon an ‘I told ya so’ look before he twists and stands. _Bastard._ He must have heard Harkness stalking through the forest some time ago. 

Deacon gives Harkness a wide grin. “Enjoyin’ the show?”

“Uh…no. I didn’t know you were- ah, that is… I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

Deacon enjoys the sight of Harkness flustered and unsure of what to say. Frankly, he would enjoy watching anyone stumble their way through this conversation. As he watches Harkness squirm under his knowing grin, Deacon notes the two bundles of rope slung over his shoulders.

“Kid, have a little mercy,” Nick says with a laugh.

“Alright. I’m just messin’ with ya, Harky.”

Harkness clicks his mouth closed and then frowns. “Harky?”

“Don’t like that? I think it has a certain ring to it,” Deacon replies and stands from the metal crate. 

“No.”

“I think it sounds a bit too close to ‘malarkey’,” Nick adds.

Deacon bursts into laughter. “Not what I was goin’ for, but I get it, back to the drawin’ board. So…Harkness, where ya been buddy oh pal, oh pal oh buddy?”

“Finding something to aid in carrying these things back to Diamond City, since you didn’t think that far ahead. There’s a settlement not far from here. I traded some work on their generator for these-” Harkness tosses the ropes on the ground. 

“Technically, I only thought there be one dish, so…” Deacon shrugs.

Harkness raises an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t make a very good Courser.”

“Ha! I’ll take that as a compliment, especially since soft, little ole’ me, managed to kill one of you.”

Nick’s clears his throat. “With a little help.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Sounded like ya did.”

Deacon rolls his eyes and smiles. “Forgive me. Nick, my, _obviously,_ better half,-” Nick chuckles, “-and I killed a Courser.”

Harkness look between the two of them, both impressed and surprised. Maybe this has garnered him some manner of sway with Harkness, as little as that may be in light of past deeds, but Deacon’s got to start somewhere so he’ll take what he can get. 

“Now,” Deacon says, “let’s get these dishes back to Diamond City before it gets dark."

\- - - - -

On the way back, about the halfway mark, Harkness’ arm starts bleeding. His bedraggled Courser jacket doesn’t offer much in the way of absorption, so it didn’t take long for the scent of blood to linger around them as it begins to drip on the asphalt. Deacon hopes it won’t attract nearby ferals, but there are no guarantees so they had to be vigilant. Harkness for his part seems determined to ignore the blood altogether, and is apparently succeeding until Deacon points it out by saying:

“Sun didn’t really clear you, did he?”

Harkness’ broody silence is all the answer he needs.

They meet a few ferals that crawl out of an ancient car wreck on the road, but it’s not the horde that Deacon feared, and they make it back to Diamond City with nary a scratch. Nick and Deacon divest Harkness of his dish and then point sternly at Sun’s clinic. Deacon can only imagine the earful he’ll be getting from the good doctor later about letting Harkness wander outside the city with a healing injury like his, but for now, he takes comfort that Harkness has to bear the brunt of Sun’s acid tongue. 

As they go by the Public Occurrences, Deacon hauls Harkness’ dish over his head like a grand trophy to show it off to Piper. 

“What the heck do you need that for?” she asks, coming out to get a better look, Nat following her.

“Gonna set my own radio station and DJ the hell outta it.” He puts on his best ‘announcer voice’, mimicking Three Dog, “‘And now a super important public service announcement! Don’t feed the yao guai!’ ...Whatcha think?”

“Why would anyone feed a yao guai?” Nat asks.

“No idea, but I’m sure some idiot out there has thinkin’ they would tame one.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Totally.”

“Ya know, Rhett,” Piper says giving him a critical look, “if you really wanted to be a DJ you could just take over Diamond City Radio.”

“And live here and give up my adventurin’ lifestyle? I couldn’t bear the thought.”

Piper rolls her eyes but not before shooting Nick a glance.

“Wouldn’t you be doing that anyways?” Nat points out.

Deacon makes a show of looking crushed. “Damn. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I guess I’ll just have to think of somethin’ else to use these for.”

“I can’t imagine you trekked all the way out to get those without a specific purpose in mind,” Piper says.

“Uh, yeah. DJ.”

“Liar.”

Deacon gives Piper a grin. “Only in the sunshine…and the rain.”

Nat looks at him critically. “What about at night?”

“It rains at night, doesn’t it?”

“So you lie all the time?”

“No, ‘course not. Who lies _all_ the time? I tell the truth…ya know, ‘cept when I lie.”

Piper snorts. “Don’t we all.”

Deacon just shrugs, grin firmly in place. “I gotta to inspect my spoils, catch ya later, Piper. Nat.” He holds out a fist for Nat to bump with her own, since they used to do that as a greeting and a goodbye, back when he lived in town. Nat looks at his fist for a moment, judging his worthiness no doubt.

“Don’t lie so much,” Nat tells him as her fist bumps his. “It’s bad for you.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Nick mutters, tone somewhere between resigned and amused as they move off and into the market. 

Deacon decides that commenting on that will only lead to an argument about his prevarication, so he pretends like he didn’t hear it. After all, the only reason he let Piper call him out on it was because he knows that Piper is too smart to fall for everything single lie he tells and so she knows that some of the things he says aren’t true. To deny that would only lead to distrust and annoyance. Plus, Nat’s at an age where she’s starting to distrust everything that adults say, and Nick already knows that he lies, a lot, so no secret there. 

Sometimes it’s in his best interest to admit that not everything he says is true.

Back at the agency, Nick and Deacon untangle themselves from the rope and radio dishes, setting them in a pile on top of the filing cabinet row so they’re out of the way for next couple of days, as they fill Ellie in on their relatively uneventful trip into the Wastes. Once everything has been put away, Deacon tells them that’s he’s going to go check on Magpie while Harkness is at Sun’s clinic. 

Like the great leader he is (not), Deacon hasn’t actually checked in with Magpie since they got to town -that brief conversation at Sun’s clinic before the bastard pumped him full of Med-X doesn’t count. Indy seemed to be on top of making sure that she was healing well, and Deacon had other problems to deal with, but that’s not an excuse for coming off as a senior agent that doesn’t give a flying fuck about the health of those under him. 

Deacon gives Third Street a quick up and down, to make sure that there aren’t any prying eyes, then he darts across the street and knocks on Arturo’s door. The man himself answers.

“Hey Deacon, come on in,” Arturo says and steps back from the entrance. “Nina and I were just gonna head out and grab some supper, and a little something for Mags.”

“That little somethin’ better be a sandwich! I hate those god-awful noodles,” Magpie says with a laugh from where she’s seated on the bed tucked into the alcove next to the door.

Nina points a finger at her like a mother would scold a child. “You’re a guest here, you get what you get.”

Magpie folds her hands in front of her like one might to pray. “Please make it sandwich Mistress Nina!”

“Well, alright,” Nina replies with a sigh. “Since you asked nicely.”

Deacon tries to keep a smile off his face in case Nina thinks he’s laughing at her. Which, he isn’t…well, not totally. Arturo chuckles slightly and Nina shoots him a narrowed eyed look as she makes her way to the door. Deacon offers Nina a solemn greeting and asks if Magpie has been much trouble.

“Not much…but, well…” Nina looks back at Magpie and then to Deacon. “Are you going to be here for much longer? It’s just that I can’t have Nat over to play or anything while you guys are here and I think she’s getting _suspicious._ ”

Deacon gives Nina a serious nod. “Won’t be much longer, promise. Then we’ll be gone and you can play with Nat, here, again.”

“Okay. Let’s go dad, I’m _starving._ ”

Before Arturo steps out the door, herding Nina in front of him, Deacon catches his attention for a moment. “We’ll talk before I leave, yeah?”

Arturo nods and then they’re gone.

Deacon grabs a chair from the small table that’s shoved into a strange, half-angled corner near the door out to Arturo’s shop front and drags it to the bed Magpie’s sitting on. He sort of thought this house was a bigger on the inside, but aside from this bed, the stairs to a small loft where Nina’s room must be, and the small dining table there isn’t much else in the house aside from a battered couch against the street wall and shelves, upon shelves of weapon merchandise. 

Arturo really needs that storage area on the roof, and judging from the cramped state of his house, Deacon can safely guess that he hasn’t saved the caps to buy it just yet.

“Hey,” Deacon says as he sits down.

“Hey, yourself, bossman,” Magpie replies, shifting on the bed and crossing her legs. “Do anything exciting today? Because I spent most of the day half hobblin’ around town trying to get my stamina back up. Do you get how much it sucks to walk from this street to bar and be a puffing, sputtering mess?”

“Yeah, I know that suckage well. You think you’ll be ready to make the trip back to the police station in a couple days?”

“Why do think I’m walking around this place?” She sighs. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. Sun, that crabby bastard, won’t give me any more stims. Apparently, I’ve exceeded my limit. Whatever. I guess they wouldn’t do that much anyways. Still…”

He knows that this forced inactivity is driving her crazy; it would drive (and has) him crazy, but maybe, in this situation, a stim isn’t the answer for better health.

“Ya know, I met this girl once. Her mother was a tribal from somewhere in the mid-west, taught her some healing recipes-”

“That mumbo-jumbo bullshit? Seriously, I thought better of you.”

Deacon holds up his hands so that the back of them are visible to Magpie. “See this? Can you tell I used to brawl in a fight club?”

“Never figured you for a fighter.” She grabs one hand to inspect it closer. “Sorta. I mean, there are a few nicks and scars, but…”

“Exactly. That mumbo-jumbo bullshit made sure I kept full use of my hands and prevented major scarring. It doesn’t work miracles, the deathclaw mauling I got proves that, but-”

Magpie gives him a look of surprise, letting go of his hand. “You were mauled by a _deathclaw?!_ Are you shitting me?”

“Nope.”

“Damn. Are all agents as badass as you, Dee?”

He laughs. “Just us heavies.”

“Well then, I wanna be a heavy.”

“How about you get better and make it through agent training, and then we can talk about joining the heavies after that.”

“Fine. Be all reasonable about it,” Magpie replies with a good-natured huff. “So, this stuff the tribal girl made, you think it’ll help?”

“With your resistance to stims, it can’t do any harm. Requires a few ingredients, two of which aren’t that hard to find, the third however is glowing fungus, and that’s little more difficult to lay your hands on if you don’t know where to look.”

“And you do?”

Deacon nods, thinking of all the Buffout he collected for Lucy in Little Lamplight in exchange for it and how and Éclair told him what glowing fungus liked to grow in. “The other two ingredients are hubflower and bloodleaf. I’ll keep my eye out for any I come across tomorrow, but you could ask to harvest a few hubflowers from Sun. He keeps a small section of the flowers. Good for inflammation, apparently.”

Magpie grimaces. “Ugh, I have to talk to that jerk again? Fine…if it’ll help me get my strength back. Whatda you doing tomorrow?”

“Goin’ parts scavenging. Nick says there’s an old RobCo place east of here.”

“Looking for something in particular?”

“Hmm…sorta. Just have to wait and see what’s there.”

“This a Railroad thing?”

“Kinda.”

Magpie gives him a look. “You’re not gonna tell me, are ya?”

Deacon just grins. 

She lets out a breath of air that ruffles the fringe that falls over her forehead. “I wish I could go; I’m so tired of this city. It’s _soo_ boring. Why couldn’t we have gone to Goodneighbour? They have a decent bar.”

“Eh, Vadim’s moonshine isn’t so bad. Gets you just as drunk as anything in The Third Rail.”

“Yeah, but Charlie doesn’t want to hear your life story. He lets you drink in misery and peace. Vadim won’t stop talking.”

Deacon chuckles. Yeah. That man likes to hear himself talk. Maybe he should audition for Diamond City Radio’s DJ. There’s a moment of companionable silence that passes in the room and Deacon wonders if he should stay longer or head back to the agency.

Suddenly, Nina bursts through the door, carrying two plates with brahmin sandwiches on them.

“Here,” she says, shoving them into Deacon’s grasp, “someone’s coming.” She closes the door quickly behind her, letting out a noise of kid-exaggerated relief and then, heads back out through the door that leads to Arturo’s storefront, leaving Deacon and Magpie staring bemusedly in her wake. After a moment, Deacon hands one of the plates to Magpie. 

She picks up half of her sandwich, and before she takes a hearty bite she says, with a grin, “I love that kid.”

Deacon hangs out with Magpie, eating his sandwich and chatting, until Arturo and Nina make it, officially, back from their supper. Then, he heads back to the agency meaning to speak with Ellie before he sets out into the Wastes again. He’s been putting off talking to her for long enough and it’s about time he faces the music. Even if the only he gets to say to her is “I’m sorry,” because she decides she doesn’t want to hear anything else from him, he still has to make an effort to atone. 

Back at the agency, Nick is sitting in his chair, next to Ellie’s desk, sifting through a sheaf of notes. Ellie is reading a copy of _‘The Wasteland Survival Guide’_ that Deacon hasn’t seen and he realizes that he hasn’t been to Bunker Hill in ages to pick up his subscription. There’s an empty noodle bowl next to Ellie’s elbow. 

They both look up when the door opens.

“Hey,” Deacon says, closing the door behind him, “Harkness back yet?”

“No. I bet Sun has him strapped to a gurney as punishment for leaving the city and reinjuring himself,” Ellie replies with a smirk as she sets down the magazine.

“Think the good doctor’ll feed him?”

“Probably, but with Sun, ya never can tell,” Nick answers.

“I don’t know about that. I mean, Sun doesn’t like Harkness. Not that I don’t understand,” Ellie says with a frown. “I’m not real fond of him myself right now.”

Nick looks at her, eyebrow raised. “Enough to not feed the man? Even Sun isn’t that cruel.”

“Yeah, besides, Sun’s not really fond of me either,” Deacon says as he perches on the edge of Ellie’s desk, “swinging that Med-X around like it’s a hammer to put down annoying patients, but he wouldn’t not provide the basic necessities of life. That’d be against his oath.”

Ellie frowns slightly. “You didn’t see the way he treated Harkness that first night. I mean, Sun can come off as a jerk at the best of times, but he was extra cruel to Harkness, without real cause. And he does like you Deacon, he even occasionally asks to see if you’re still alive.”

“Probably just to lament my continued existence,” Deacon replies with a grin even as he wonders why Sun would treat Harkness like that. Did he know something?

Nick sets aside his papers and makes a noise of thought. “It’s strange…you mentioning that Ellie, ‘cause I had a peculiar conversation with Sun the other day.”

“Oh? Do tell. I’ve been missin’ all the good Diamond City gossip lately,” Deacon says and leans in conspiratorially.

Nick rolls his eyes. “I was down to talk with him about your wrist kid, and we got talking about Magpie’s health, and then Sun made a comment about Gunners doing that damage in a way that made it seem like he didn’t believe that. So, I asked him. He said the laser wounds on her weren’t made by a pre-war weapon.”

Deacon’s feigned light mood evaporates as he considers this new information. He’s only ever known one doctor that could tell the difference between Institute laser damage and damage from a pre-war one: Carrington. Something about the way the laser destroyed tissue. James would’ve thought it interesting; Deacon just filed the information away under ‘Thing’s dad would have liked to know’.

“He knew it was an Institute weapon?” Ellie asks. 

“He didn’t say that, but he implied it. Also, implied that I had seen damage like it before.”

“Sun knows you fought with a Courser before? Is he Railroad?”

Nick shrugs.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Deacon says. “There’s plenty of other reasons that Sun might have seen this kind of tissue damage and know the difference between pre-war lasers and an Institute weapon. It’s not like he’s lived in Diamond City all his life; he probably wandered the wastes, patchin’ up people, and learned to tell the difference. It isn’t only Coursers who carry lasers; Gen 1s and 2s do as well. Scavers run into them lots, as do raiders and Gunners. Besides, I’d know if he was Railroad, and he’s not.”

“Maybe he’s ex-Railroad,” Ellie says.

Deacon shakes his head. “That doesn’t happen very often. Most of the time when an agent is removed from the active list is ‘cause they died.”

“But it _does_ happen.” Ellie is determined to drive her point home.

“Look, I’m not gonna debate this with you; it’s a moot point. We can’t ask, not in this town, and unfamiliar agents only talk to one another after a successful sign/countersign. If, _if_ , Sun’s ex-Railroad, he won’t know any current signs. Case closed.”

Ellie frowns at him, looking like she isn’t ready to drop the subject just yet. “It seems like a waste. Another ally in town would be useful.”

“But if he left The Railroad, he’s probably not interested in helpin’ anyways,” Nick points out.

“Then why would he allude to it? Maybe he’s changed his mind.”

“Did he? Or are we just assuming that because of what we know?” Deacon questions. This isn’t exactly going how he imagined it would back at Arturo’s place. How’s he suppose to transition into talking about Tom?

“If he’d said that to anyone else, then I might agree with you,” Ellie says, “but he said it _to_ Nick. The one clear example of The Institute’s handy work in town. Maybe he doesn’t know about the Courser you and Nick fought, and he’s just assuming that because Nick is a synth he would’ve seen the damage before.”

“Yeah, but that could apply to any Waster worth their salt. Who hasn’t seen the damage The Institute has wrought on the Commonwealth? University Point is just the latest example.”

“But how could’ve Sun known that some other merc or Waster _had_ seen such damage? How could he be sure? And would he risk it if he wasn’t? Nick’s a sure bet.”

“Thanks, Ellie,” Nick says with a smile from where he’s leaned back in his chair to watch them debate. He’s apparently decided to let the two of them hash this out. Smart. 

She gives Nick a nod and then turns back to Deacon, eyebrow raised, waiting for a response. 

“My previous point still stands. We can’t ask, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. What if something happens and we need his help? Wouldn’t it be better to know which side he’s on?”

“And how would you go about doin’ that without givin’ yourself away as a Railroad tourist? You can’t trust him until you know for certain and you can’t know for certain until you trust him. So, you can’t do anything.”

Ellie huffs slightly, possibly thinking of some way to refute his argument. “And if Sun came to you?”

“Came to me and said what? That he was sympathetic to The Cause?”

Ellie nods.

“I’d tell him I had no idea what he was talkin’ about.”

“Ugh. You are _impossible._ ”

“No. I just don’t want The Institute to raid a safehouse, or kill agents, ‘cause someone got sloppy.” Deacon sighs. “I know it’s frustrating, but please understand that it can’t be risked.”

Ellie pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I understand. I just wish there was something more we could do.”

“Hey, I get it. We could always use more allies, but that can’t come at the cost of agents already in play.”

There’s a moment of silence that follows Deacon’s words, as they all think about what’s been said. Then,

“You called us ‘tourists’,” Nick says.

“Sure. You’re allies, but not agents. That’s what we call people who occasionally help out but don’t have the privileges of an agent, either ‘cause they don’t want them or haven’t earned them.” Deacon shrugs and gives them a grin. “Of course, it’s not official or anything. HQ would probably flip if they knew, so we’ll just have to keep this between us, okay? …And maybe Arturo.”

Ellie lets out a long-suffering sigh and Nick just shakes his head. No words of reprimand, though, they seem to have come to terms with the fact that Deacon is beholden unto no one and often flouts the rules…that he just talked about. _Oops._

“So, can we talk about somethin’ a little depressing for a moment?” Deacon asks, previous grin falling from his face.

Ellie and Nick nod.

Deacon looks down at his hands, unsure of how to continue. “I know it’s been a while since Tom died-” across the desk, Ellie tenses “-and I’ve been a shitty friend for not comin’ by sooner to say this. So… Ellie, I’m sorry.” For a moment, he considers continuing, blurting out a bunch of excuses and begging for forgiveness, but a snatch of a voice echoes in his head and somehow he thinks he’s had this train of thought before and someone counselled against it, so he holds his peace. 

“I know,” she replies after a moment. “Nick told me everything about what happened that night, so please don’t blame yourself. I told him-” her voice cracks somewhat, “I told Tom not to go and see what the commotion was because it was his night off and that he shouldn’t have to deal with whatever drunken ass it was, but Tom didn’t listen because he knew it wasn’t that.

“And because he knew that, he should’ve known _better_ than to get into a firefight without his damned armour!” Ellie’s voice wavers between grief and anger as tears gather in her eyes. “You didn’t get him killed, Deacon. Tom got himself killed.”

Deacon breathes in and out, unable to find words. Maybe it’s better that he doesn’t say anything. A weight feels like it lifted from his shoulders and yet, somehow it feels wrong to let go of the blame as if it’s easier to just carry the sky on his shoulders like Atlas than to relinquish the burden to someone else. 

Then, Ellie reaches across the desk and takes his hand in hers, and that feels more like forgiveness than any words ever could.


	22. Designation: Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They say, best men are moulded out of faults,_   
>  _and, for the most, become much more the better_   
>  _for being a little bad._
> 
> _Measure of Measure (5.1.440)_

Ellie is kind enough to let Deacon use her gravity shower to wash off the accumulated radiation dust and sweat from their travels that day. He had used it the night they cremated Olivia to wash the scent of smoke and charred flesh off, but to get to use twice in one week is like Christmas come early. Deacon’s sure that he will forever hate having to wash in a tin tub, or the sawed-off half of a barrel, after knowing the glory that is running water. 

He goes to bed that night clean and smelling vaguely of mutfruit. 

Nick wakes him fairly early the next morning so they can get a good start on trudging over to the other side of Boston. Deacon takes stock of his equipment, knowing that a walk through the ruins is likely to use more ammo than their previous day’s adventure. He’s got 4 plasma cells left, which is 48 shots, plus however many are left in the cell in his pistol. He’s lost count of that over the course of the last few days. 

Four cells don’t feel like enough for his own sanity, but Deacon’s doesn’t have any caps to buy more and getting a few from Arturo on credit, after he’s already done so much, isn’t something that Deacon can do in good conscious (besides, judging from the signs Arturo has hanging on his shop’s walls, Deacon doubts he’d even agree to that, Railroad agent or no). So, four cells it’s going to have to be. 

Besides, it isn’t like he’s going on out there on his own. Nick’s always carries five speedloaders and a pouch full of bullets with him -which he’s collected through the years from various sources around the Commonwealth as his type of bullets (.223s) are rare.

It’ll be just like old times!

Ellie gives him a satchel packed with some food and water for the trip that he can sling over one shoulder. The satchel itself looks like it was something Ellie used as a girl because there are more patches on it than the original canvas and a crude drawing of what looks like a mutated rabbit with a rainbow in the background on the flap. He inspects it, admiring child-Ellie’s drawing skills as she blushes slightly. 

“Cute,” he says and swings the bag over his shoulder. “I make sure to let everyone know, that they can now call me ‘Death Bunny’ along with just regular old Deacon. Well, as long as I’ve got this stylin’ bag, anyways.”

Ellie laughs slightly and smacks his arm, blushing even more. “Shut up. I was like ten when I made that and there was a jackrad that used to hang out in Goodneighbour that I would feed scraps.”

Nick flicks his lighter open and lights the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Sounds like that fits you to a tee, kid,” he says smirking at Deacon.

Yeah. Uncomfortably so.

Deacon grins. “I’ll gladly share kinship with a jackrad that Ellie liked. She has excellent taste, after all. Well…” he gives Nick a once over, “excepting maybe you.”

“Your keen knife sees not the wound it makes,” Nick replies, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Deacon smiles. Challenge accepted. “Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound, but I’m afraid that I must be honest about how well you measure up, Nick.”

“Thou grumblest and railest every hour on me, kid, and thou art as full of envy at my greatness as McDonough is at Piper’s smarts.”

Deacon chuckles. That’s a good one. He takes a moment to do some math in his head, which may or may not be terribly accurate. Then, “Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish and fond young man. You, on the other hand, are a gross, five score and certainly more, and, to deal plainly, I fear you are not in a perfect mind.”

Nick gives him a mildly impressed look and Ellie starts laughing. Deacon throws a arm out and bows. 

“Think you can match my knowledge of Shakespeare quotes? ‘Course, we could always try someone else. How’s your Tolstoy? Proust? Rand? Poe?”

Nick gives a conceding nod. “I bow to your knowledge, kid, and maybe I’ll take you up on another author some other time, but if I let you, you’ll burn this whole day tryin’ to out clever me.”

“That’s… probably true. I do so like being the cleverest person in a room. Bit of a personal failin’ of mine.”

Nick herds him toward the agency’s door with a laugh. “So, I’ve noticed.”

“Ellie, I don’t know how you put up with him all day long. Jeez. It’s just ‘you’re full of envy’, or ‘you’re too clever’ or ‘you’re so vain’ or ‘stop tryin’ to die’. _Annnoooying._ ”

“Nick’s a pleasure to work with. I think the problem is you,” Ellie replies, trying to hold back a grin.

“Ouch, Ellie. That cut me deep. Real deep. Like so deep, I might have to go see Sun for some stitches and a stim.”

Ellie laughs again and the way Nick looks back at her with a little smile that’s both amused at the current conversation and says ‘I’m glad to hear that again’, tells Deacon that she hasn’t truly laughed in a good long while. There aren’t words to express how _good_ that makes him feel.

“Good thing we’re droppin’ by to see the doc, then, isn’t it? Get you all patched up before we head out,” Nick replies opening the door and all but shoving him out it.

Deacon waves to Ellie as he goes. “Don’t die of boredom while we’re gone!”

“And you don’t die, period, while you’re gone!” Ellie calls back.

“See ya,” Nick says to Ellie, flashing her a quick smile.

“If you get a chance, swing by Goodneighbour, yeah?” Ellie says.

Nick leans on the doorknob, cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he talks. “I’ll do it this mornin’.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“I always am.”

Ellie's huff of disbelief is the last thing Deacon hears before Nick shuts the door. They start making their way through the streets, heading for Sun’s clinic. Harkness was forced to stay overnight in the clinic because Sun didn’t trust him to leave and not damage his hard work all over again. Deacon doesn’t expect that Sun will allow Harkness out of the city for at least another day, but he wants to let Harkness know that’ll be out of town for today. 

Maybe Magpie will buy his sorry ass a drink at the bar or something, and they can both complain about how injuries are keeping them out of the field. Harkness needs someone other than Deacon to talk to (anyone, really) and Magpie seems to have warmed to Harkness since he thanked her for killing Zimmer. Deacon thinks that a little conversation would be good for the both of them.

Which is why he mentioned it to Magpie last night after swinging by to see what the deal was with Harkness.

“Whatda gotta do in Goodneighbour?” Deacon asks as they reach the market.

A sad sort of look flicks over Nick’s face. “The other Long girl, Natalie hasn’t handled her sister’s, Barbra’s, death very well. She’s still underage- or, well, I guess that’s a pre-war way of lookin’ at it, but she’s young, and has fallen into chems.” Nick sighs, blowing out a curl of smoke as he does, expressing frustration and sadness with the sound. “I usually go by every coupla months, when the Longs tell me that’s she stopped comin’ home, and put a bug in Hancock’s ear about it. He has someone bring her home. For all the good it does.”

Deacon almost wishes he hadn’t asked. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Well, that has put a damper on their previous good mood. Nick looks at him askance, like he wants to ask a question, but then looks away again. Thinking better of it maybe? Deacon’s left to wonder as they arrive at Sun’s clinic. 

“Whatever it is that you want, Rhett,” Sun says from his perch on one of the metal cabinets in the clinic’s front, shaking out his copy of _Publick Occurrences_ so it better lays in his hands, “the answer is no.”

Nick snorts.

“I didn’t use any of my stimpaks yesterday,” Deacon begins, “so no need to worry about my health, ‘cause I know it’s at the forefront of your mind,-” Sun makes a sarcastic noise of agreement and turns a page in his paper, “-I’m just here to let Harkness know to go hang out in town today, see the sights, and get away from one especially vitriolic doc.”

Sun looks at him from over the top of his newspaper, an unimpressed look on his face. “Tell him that, then. I certainly don’t want patients who are especially incapable of following orders.”

“I will,” Deacon replies.

“Do that, _Dee_.”

Deacon narrows his eyes behind his sunglasses. There’s something peculiar about Sun’s tone every time he says that. 

“Got my bill ready?” Deacon asks, figuring if they’re going to stop in Goodneighbour he might as well get the caps he owes Sun from his stash at The Memory Den. And hey, he could also buy some plasma cells, sweet. “Gonna tap into that 401k I got and make it _rain._ ”

Nick chuckles at that. Or maybe it was his exaggerated hand motions, mimicking rain. Sun just raises an eyebrow, but Deacon thinks he sees amusement in the doctor’s face. One of these days he’ll get Sun to smile. Hell might freeze over when he does, but it’ll happen. 

Sun sets down his newspaper and plucks a folded piece of scrap from the pocket of his lab coat. “Here,” he says, handing it over. “Though, I suggest waiting until you’re out of town before you look at it so I don’t have to treat your fainting spell when you get a look at the number.”

_Great,_ Deacon thinks, _this is totally going to wipe me out._

“Hey, you’re the doctor,” Deacon agrees and tucks the paper away without looking at it. He’ll save it for Goodneighbour, preferably in Amari’s clinic, so just in case he has a heart attack looking at it, there will be help readily available. “I’ll bring your caps by later today.”

Sun makes a noise of acknowledgement and returns to his newspaper, and Deacon and Nick head downstairs to talk with Harkness. Well, Deacon will probably be doing all the talking. 

They find Harkness pacing the confines of the clinic like yao guai pacing in a cage. His arm is in a sling like it was yesterday, and his shirt sleeve still in bloody tatters where Sun sliced it to get at the damaged limb. Harkness catches sight of them descending the stairs and he throws them a dark look, not stopping in his circuit. 

“Hey,” Deacon says, and takes a seat on Sun’s rolling stool, spinning around once because he has always wanted to do that. He catches Nick’s amused smile as he spins by. “Looks like you were up bright and early.”

“When am I allowed to leave this place?” Harkness asks, annoyance in his tone and scowl on his face.

“Technically, whenever you wanted. Sun wouldn’t really be able to stop ya if you put your mind to it.”

“And if I didn’t want to make an enemy of every person in this town carrying a gun?”

Deacon grins. “Sun’s as sicka lookin’ at you as you are at him. So, in the interest of not continuin’ to piss off the only guy in town capable of healin’ injuries, you’re free to head back to the agency. Magpie will probably check in later and you to can commiserate over your various injuries.”

Harkness looks relieved, then suspicious. “So, where you headed?”

“An old RobCo service center. Should be fun.” Deacon spins around in the chair, once last time before he stands. “Super excited about it, really.”

“You gonna be back by the end of the day?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And after that?”

Deacon knows that what Harkness means by that question is ‘What’s going to happen once you leave Diamond City?’, but he still hasn’t figured that out so he plays dumb. 

“Some food, maybe a game of cards, check on you and Magpie, ya know, the usual.”

Harkness gives him a long look, but doesn’t say the words that are clearly written on his face: ‘That’s not what I meant.’ Maybe he gets that Deacon’s doesn’t know just what the hell to do or say to him. Or maybe Harkness himself hasn’t figured out how to move on from here and was looking for a sense of Deacon’s position, lie or not, to tell him which way to go to be as far away from him as possible.

You can learn a lot from a lie, after all. 

“Guess I’ll go wash up then,” Harkness says after a moment and starts toward the stairs. “That doctor of yours doesn’t seem to know what water is, and I probably stink of blood.”

Deacon and Nick follow him up the stairs and outside, Harkness veers off toward the water purification pond without bothering with a backward glance. Every conversation he has with Harkness is strained like he can feel the man suppressing the urge to lash out at him, and he suspects that the only reason Harkness is still around is because Deacon happens to know the doctor in town. He has little doubt that Harkness will be gone as soon as he feels capable of handling the Wastes.

And though he feels kind of shitty for thinking it, that might be best for the both of them.

Sun rattles his paper as they walk by, and Deacon’s tempted to throw a small pebble at it just to see what kind of reaction he’d get, but Nick must sense his hesitation because he pulls Deacon along toward the exit. 

Nick’s starting to get too good at reading him. A clear sign he’s spent too much time in town. 

At the Publick Occurrences, Piper is shooing Nat away from the printing press and telling her to get to class. 

“Gogogogogo-go…You’ll be late,” she says to Nat, waving her hand in a ‘get outta here,’ motion. “The old girl will be here when you get back; I still have some editing to do anyways.”

“Ugh, fine…” Nat replies and grabs her bag from the floor, passing by Deacon and Nick, before seemingly thinking of something, and turning back to looking at Nick. “Piper’s terminal isn’t working again, could you look at it?”

“ _Nat,_ ” Piper warns, “School.”

Nat rolls her eyes and leaves, mumbling something like: “If I don’t ask, who will?”

Nick looks to Piper, eyebrow raised in question. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” she says, and frankly, she lies about a well as Nick does. They both look at her in disbelief. “Ugh...I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s my own incompetence with the thing that’s causing the problem and not the terminal itself.”

“But?” Nick prompts.

A look of annoyance flashes across Piper’s face. “But…it’s not saving anything, so I’m having to write articles by hand, and…well, it’s not pretty.”

“Kid?” Nick looks at him in question, deferring to his expertise. 

Deacon hesitates for a moment, considering if it’s worth it burn time on this task today, but Piper did him a favour with Olivia, so it only seems right to repay it, even if it does take more time that he’d like. He pulls out his trusty screwdriver (that usually picks more locks than it takes apart computers, but hey, double duty today) and looks at Piper. 

“Take me to it.”

She looks at him in slight surprise. “Aren’t we a jack-of-all-trades?”

Deacon grins. “I do try.”

“Alright, if you know what you’re doin’, come and see.” Piper waves for them to follow her inside. 

The familiar scent of ink and paper hangs pleasantly in the air in Piper’s house/newspaper head office, and Deacon has always loved the smell of it. It brings back memories of his vault’s library. Here, the scent is sharp, and new -unlike in the vault where the scent was dusty, and ancient as the books slowly decomposed as they sat on the shelves, but it’s close enough to evoke memories all the same. Below that immediate scent there is the smell of grease from the second printing press and the underlying scent of radiation dust that permeates everything. 

Piper leads him to her terminal, upstairs in the loft that doubles as her office and bedroom. She throws her bed’s blanket over a pile of clothes on the floor.

“Just ignore the mess,” she says, slightly embarrassed. 

“Ignored,” Deacon replies and takes a seat at her desk. 

Piper moves to look over his right shoulder, and Nick at his left. No pressure or anything. It’s not like his computer programming knowledge is a little rusty or anything, and he’s certainly not out of practice. Nope. Not him. Sure, he built a computer, but JH _programmed_ it. 

Shaking off those thoughts, Deacon presses the space bar on the keyboard to bring the computer out of standby mode and the home screen text starts running across the screen.

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink  
Publick Occurrences: Your Eyes on the Truth  
_________________________________________________________________

...  
[Article: Remembering Tom Kirk]  
[Article: Institute Destroys University Point!]  
[Article: Minutemen Exclusive, U.P. Deathclaws Gone!]  
[Article: Missing People in Diamond City on the Rise]  
[Article: Our (Not So) Purified Water]  
[Article: Three Years after the Election, Are We Better Off?]  
[Draft: Why We Should Be in Trade Negotiations With Goodneighbor]  
[Draft: Clay Urns…(I don’t know, insert something profound here)]  
[Reader Complaints File]  
[Publick Perspectives: Current]  
[Publick Perspectives: Archived]

WARNING: Internal Storage usage @ 92%  
ERR 0xFFF11011: Memory fault.

ǁ

Huh. Well, a memory fault might explain why Piper is unable to save documents, and with her hard drive almost full, she shouldn’t really be saving anymore to it anyways. Of course, he’s not sure what kind of fault that code means. Is it something he can fix? Or should she be looking for a new memory module?

“So,” Piper says, “this one is the article I’m tryin’ to get to print-” she points to the _‘Why We Should Be in Trade Negotiations With Goodneighbor’_ article, “-but I got about half way through and it wouldn’t save, and then the thing crashed and I lost part of the article and had to rewrite it from memory. Which sucked, ‘cause I had a few good lines and that I couldn’t remember afterwards. And now that stupid error message shows all the time and I can’t save anything.”

“Okay, but one thing before I start pokin’ around. Your internal storage is almost full. Do you have any holotapes?” Deacon starts scrolling upwards, holding down the up arrow on the keyboard. There must be hundreds of articles on this thing. No wonder. He stops when the thing starts getting sluggish and heads back to the bottom. 

“No…”

“Then we need to get you some, ‘cause you should be archiving old articles on holotapes and then deletin’ ‘em off the terminal. It’ll make it run _way_ faster and with less chance of an error.”

“Okay. So…where can I find some blank ones?”

“Anywhere, really. There all over the place, though they may not be blank and so you’ll have to format them.”

Piper furrows her brows slightly and gives him a look that says ‘Do I look like I know how to do that?’ 

“…And I’ll show you how to do that. _Later._ ” He turns back to the screen. “First, let’s figure out what this error code is.” 

At the blinking cursor line Deacon types:

>$ HELP MESSAGE/ERR=%0xFFF11011

After a moment, the terminal kicks back this:

>$ HELP MESSAGE/ERR=%0Xff11011  
%MSGHLP-S-MDFSUC, Message Data File for error 0xFFF11011  
-RRMS-I-MAXMEMEXC, MODULE 0 has exceeded maximum available memory  
-RRMS-I-CORFILSTR, MODULE 0 has corrupted file structure  
-RRMS-I-STOMEMACC, RT-E330-7589 has stopped accessing memory MODULE 0

Crap. 

“Uh…corrupted file structure doesn’t sound good,” Piper says, staring at the screen. 

“It’s not.”

“Well?”

Nick moves a hand to rest on the back of Deacon’s chair. “This thing got any other memory modules installed?”

Deacon shrugs and checks.

>$ SHOW DRAM/LIST

\- MOD 0 : 8 KB RT-E330-7589 – RobCo VX-Core 5569801-444.A00LF *MVX*

“Nope,” Deacon replies and sits back in the chair, resting against the length of Nick’s arm.

“That’s bad, right?” Piper asks. 

Deacon hums in agreement. “If there was another module installed, we could just remove the corrupt one and tell the terminal to use the other memory module, but there isn’t another one.” He twists to face Piper, “Good news, though, Nick and I are headed to a RobCo service center so I could probably find another one there, or two…just in case.”

“Oh? And what might you two be doin’ there?” Piper has her, ‘I smell a story’ look on her face. Damn, she’s perceptive. She might not always know the details, but she could almost always tell if something was worth investigating. 

“Boring stuff like picking through a two-hundred-year-old building and listenin’ to me whistle.” Deacon grins. He knows she hates his song choice.

“Also goin’ to Goodneighbour if you’re lookin’ to badger Hancock about a proper interview,” Nick adds with a shrug. 

Deacon kind of feels like turning to him and giving him an annoyed look because he doesn’t need Piper poking at the things he’d rather keep to himself (it’s bad enough that he’s got Nick poking into everything and he doesn’t need her doing it too), but that would just fuel Piper’s curiosity even more, so he notches up his grin a few watts.

“Oh yeah, it’ll be a barrel full of laughs. Join us and you too can kill ferals and raiders as we walk to the airport.”

Piper raises an eyebrow and looks at him, almost as if she can sense his bluff, and Deacon curses internally. He’s started not lying so much lately that it seems like every Tom, Dick, and Jane in the Wastes is able to tell when he’s lying. Pretty soon, Desdemona is going to accuse him of being the pillar of honesty and he might as well hang up his sunglasses then. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Piper says after a moment's consideration. “Sounds interesting, and I do need to talk to Hancock.”

“Good. It’s settled then,” Deacon says and picks up his trusty screwdriver from where he set it down on the desk and twirls it in his fingers. “I gotta grab that pesky memory module so I know what to look for, so you might as well get your gear.”

Piper nods. “I’ll run over to the School and tell Nat I’m leavin’... and maybe ask Arturo to check in on her after class.” She says this with slight hesitation like she has to talk herself into it. “Don’t break it,” she says pointing to the computer, “and don’t leave without me.”

“Who me? Never.”

Piper looks to Nick who chuckles. 

“I’ll make sure of it,” he says.

\- - - - -

There are a few things that Deacon is curious to know about Piper and Nat since he last lived in Diamond City, and once they leave Goodneighbour and get on the road for real, he’ll probably bring them up and just let her talk about it. As long as she’s talking, she not asking questions.

Despite having a medium in which to point out the various failings and successes of Diamond City, and the Commonwealth as a whole, Piper doesn’t have too many people who are interested in hearing what she has to say about herself. Ellie undoubtedly cares, Nick too, and possibly Arturo since Nat and Nina seem to spend a lot of time together. Then there’s him, and if his questions happen to kill two birds with one stone, well, that’s just his luck, right?

And if all else fails, there’s always whistling.

Piper asks about their stop in Goodneighbour and Nick tells mentions that the Longs came by the agency yesterday while he was gone. 

“Oh,” Piper says, face falling somewhat, and Nick doesn’t need to explain any more than that. It’s clear that she’s knows all about Natalie Long’s troubles, and if Deacon had to guess, he’d say all of Diamond City does too. You can’t keep things like that secret in a small community, everybody knows your business, as annoying or painful as that might be.

They reach Goodneighbour with few complications, after having to sneak by the half-finished hotel near the alley entrance to avoid a fight with the super mutants that have made their home in it. Every time Deacon sees super mutants he wonders which vault was experimenting with FEV and if it’s possible to find it and destroy the virus. Then, Deacon has to give himself an annoyed shake. Not his problem, not his problem, _not his problem._

They split up in the courtyard, just past the entrance. Piper and Nick heading to the Old State House while Deacon watches them go. Nick asked where he could find Deacon once he was done. 

“I’ll be drawn’ on my 401k at my least favourite place in town, but I’ll probably meet you two out here, gotta buy some cells from Kleo before we head out,” Deacon replies, jabbing a thumb at Kill or Be Killed. That is if he manages to get out of Amari’s sight intact. Somehow he suspects she’s not going to be very happy to see him.

Nick nods and Piper looks like she’s about to ask what a 401k is when Nick gestures for her to come with him and leave Deacon alone. 

“Hancock first, Rhett later,” he says and Piper shrugs in reluctant agreement.

When they’ve safely disappeared into the Old State House, Deacon heads through the narrows alleys of Goodneighbour for the neon sign that marks The Memory Den.

Despite Goodneighbour’s reputation as a chem den, there’s plenty of activity on the streets. You would think that for the hours this town keeps, the place would be dead this early in the morning, but it’s alive with a bustle to rival Diamond City. There are several food stands tucked into corners, or against buildings, selling all kinds of breakfast chow to the morning crowd, and their scents linger the air around him, making Deacon hungry. 

Ellie packed him dry rations and water for the day, but he might have to buy himself a mirelurk egg bun for the road. He starts crossing the street from the small courtyard in front of The Third Rail’s entrance, angling toward The Memory Den when someone with a ballcap pulled low bumps into him in the crowd. There’s a moment when they're jostled together, by a couple people moving around them, and then the guy is starting away with a mumbled apology.

Deacon grabs the back of his shirt. “Don’t think so, pal,” he says and spins the man. This close Deacon can see it’s a scrap of a kid, no more than sixteen, all awkward angles and scrawny limbs. Deacon holds out a hand. “Give it back.”

The teen gives him a wide-eyed look and plays dumb. “Uh, sorry? What?”

Deacon sighs and hauls him toward The Memory Den, getting them out of the crowd, just in case the teen is the distraction while someone else picks his various pockets. He used to have to deal with this shit in Rivet City too, and he learned the hard way how to spot someone going for your valuables -it’s better to be in a place where you can easily catch someone’s approach. 

Man, Diamond City has no idea how good they got it.

He tosses the kid against the brick wall and draws himself up to his full height, so it’s clear he’s not to be messed with. 

“The plasma cell you took from my pouch. I don’t have anything else of value, and my pistol is still in its holster, so hand it over. I don’t got all day.”

“Look, I don’t know what yer talkin’ about,” the teen replies, a slight defiant tilt to his chin. 

“No? Well, then-” Deacon throws an arm around the teen’s shoulders, “-let’s go talk to Hancock and get this whole mess sorted out. I’m sure he’d love to hear that Goodneighbour’s pickpockets are targeting his friends.”

It’s more a bluff than anything. Hancock would probably laugh and tell Deacon to mind his possessions better.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait,” the teen stutters and starts scrambling to get free of Deacon’s grasp. “No need to get hasty, Sir. I didn’t know you were friends with the Mayor.”

“Well, now ya do. Cell.” Deacon holds out an expectant hand; the other still firmly clamped around the teen’s shoulders to prevent him from bolting. 

With a sigh, the teen pulls out the stolen plasma cell from a pocket inside the baggy shirt he’s wearing and sets it in Deacon’s hand. 

“Thanks, and tell all your friends, hmm?”

The teen nods and Deacon lets him go, but instead of bolting for the morning crowd, the teen hesitates and looks at him.

“Somethin’ else?” Deacon asks. 

The teen scrubs the side of his face, looking slightly embarrassed. “Look, yer not gonna like…tell anyone, right?”

“Hancock? Nah, as long as it doesn’t happen again.”

“No- I mean…that’s good, it’s just that-” The teen shakes his head. “Never mind,” he says and turns to go. Deacon catches his arm.

“Spit it out, kid. Kinda on a time clock here.”

“Forget I said anything. Everyone else thinks I’m daft for believein’ in The Shroud anyways.” 

There’s a moment of surprise that catches Deacon off guard and his grip on the teen loosens enough for him to pull from Deacon’s grasp and disappear into the crowd. The Shroud …like The Silver Shroud? Deacon’s mind immediately thinks of Georgie and he wonders- no. Forget it. Chances that the kid meant The _Silver_ Shroud are slim; it’s probably some mob boss or something and Hancock will have a handle on it anyways. 

He’s got too many things to worry about without adding a boogeyman in Goodneighbour to the list.

Deacon pockets his stolen plasma cell and heads inside The Memory Den.

He takes a few steps, boots clacking on the floor, but he has to stop in the entryway and lean against one of the brick walls as wave irrational panic suddenly hit him like a charging deathclaw. Deacon’s shaking slightly under the sudden realization that he has to walk the length of The Memory Den’s floor and pass by a bunch of Loungers. It’s dumb, he knows, it’s not like they can reach out and grab at him, but the irrational part won’t let him move forward. In fact, if he didn’t need to get access to his caps so badly he might just walk right back out into the streets of Goodneighbour.

He’s not sure how long he stands there in indecision and fear, the soft hum of machinery vibrating through the wooden floor boards and filling the air, when the door opens and Nick walks in off the street. Nick gives him a smirk and looks like he’s about to say something like ‘I figured I’d find you here,’ when he notices what must be Deacon’s very obvious panic. 

“Kid?” Nick asks softly, voice full of concern, as he quickly moves to stand beside Deacon. 

“I can’t,” Deacon whispers, staring down the short hall at the old ticket booth, “I can’t. Amari looks after a bunch of my caps, but walkin’ past all those Loungers- I just… I just _can’t._ ”

“Breathe, kid,” Nick says as he steps in front of Deacon and rubbing his arms, effectively blocking his view and forcing him to look at Nick. “In and out.”

Deacon tries to follow Nick’s suggestion, but it feels like that’s all he’s been doing since he got here. He does as Nick asks, though, breathing, in and out. His mind wanders, however, to being trapped in that vault-like maze, to walking that long corridor and facing all the people he’s killed and gotten killed in his life, to being with Braun in his dad’s medical bay and forced to cut Jonas apart, to-

“Count.” Nick’s voice cuts through the noise, and he looks at Nick’s face slight confused. “Count your breaths,” he elaborates.

Oh, okay. Yeah. He can do that. In, out -1. In, out -2. In, out -3. By the time Deacon reaches twenty, he’s stopped shaking. He’s still not feeling great about walking through the Den, but focusing on counting his breaths has helped calm him and he knows that he won’t have to do it alone. 

“Okay, I think I’m…better,” he says and focuses on Nick’s face.

Nick gives him a slight nod. “Do you want to first, or should I?”

Deacon hesitates. He wants Nick to go first so he can hide behind Nick’s frame, but he just patted himself on the back for being able to face his fears and The Lone Wanderer’s words are still rattling around in his brain: _‘…not the ones that matter.’_ He’s got to start somewhere, and this seems like a good a place as any. 

“No. I’ll go first…just, stick close, yeah?”

“You got it.”

Deacon pushes himself off the wall and Nick steps to the side to allow him to pass by. He concentrates on keeping his breathing even and slow, and on the sound that his boots make as he walks across the floor. As he rounds the corner into the Den proper, there’s a brief pause as the Loungers come into view, but Deacon pushes forward. If there’s anything to truly fear in this place, it’s Amari after he bolted on her treatment in March. 

Irma watches their approach with a slight smile on her face, a smile he is pretty sure is directed at Nick because unfortunately his past behaviour here was appalling and he certainly can’t blame her for not being too excited to see him again. 

“Detective, how nice to see you,” Irma says, voice low and pleased, then her eyes flick to him. “Well, can’t say I’m particularly surprised you’re still alive, but that might not last for very much longer…” She gives him a smirk.

Yeah. He has that feeling too. Deacon gives a one shoulder shrug and nods accepting Irma’s assessment of the situation, not trusting himself to speak. 

“How’s things?” Nick asks, setting one foot on the stage and leaning forward slightly.

“Peachy; things are humming along just fine. New clients, new locks,-” her gaze flicks to Deacon again, and a wicked grin flashes on his face before she continues, “-even managed to get another lounger for a very specific client. Business is booming.”

“Good to hear. Amari downstairs?”

Irma nods. “Nick, are you ever going to come here just to see little ole’ me? I’m starting to think Amari is the only one you care about.”

“In place of you? _Irma,_ you know me better than that. You’re the highlight of my trips to Goodneighbour.”

She chuckles somewhat. “Thanks, darlin’, and now that you’ve appeased my vanity, I’ll let you two get on with your business. Don’t take too long, though, there are a couple clients nearing the end of their allotted time.”

Nick nods, stepping back from the stage and then waits for Deacon to start moving off before following in his wake. The tension in Deacon’s shoulders eases somewhat when they pass out of view of The Den and start down the stairs to Amari’s lab. Of course, there isn’t much space in Amari’s lab to stand that isn’t taken up by the two Loungers she keeps there to aid in the memory wiping/reallocation process, but Deacon’s made it this far and he still has Sun’s note to distract him.

In her lab, Amari is busy typing at her terminal while her breakfast cools on a plate next to her. As they enter, she takes a sip of something hot in a mug, and Nick raps on the door as they go by. Amari turns, mug still in hand, and catches sight of them. Her face flicks through several different expressions before landing on _mad._ She sets her mug down and marches across the room.

“What the hell were you thinking?” She demands with a growl, and grabs Deacon’s ear, yanking his head down her level. He yelps in surprise and pain, but Amari doesn’t let her grip up. “Leaving this town before you were even close to being ready to go, and nearly killing yourself trying to get to Ticonderoga?!”

Deacon opens his mouth to say something but she talks over him, tugging his ear again to make sure he stays quiet. Nick watches with wide eyes beside him.

“Oh, yes, I know about that. I got quite the note from Carrington. He was a little irate that I apparently ‘let you go,’ so I set him straight on that matter right away. Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? About your mental health after what happened? You _arrogant,_ stupid, careless agent.” Amari finally lets go of his ear and turns on Nick. “And _you,_ detective, what were you thinking letting him leave Goodneighbour?”

“Uh…” Nick fumbles as he rubs the back of his neck, clearly unsure of what to say to appease Amari. 

Deacon presses a hand to his ear, pinning it hard against the side of his head, avoiding the legs of his sunglasses, as it throbs in the wake of Amari’s assault. “It’s not his fault,” he says. “I didn’t give Nick a choice, and I couldn’t stay in Goodneighbour, not after everything that had happened in those two months. I didn’t want The Institute to get wise to this place.”

“I am perfectly capable of keeping off the Institute’s radar, Deacon,” Amari replies, rankled and still very much pissed off. “I’ve been an agent longer than you, and I certainly don’t need you to sacrifice your health over some perceived folly on your part.”

“Yeah, but you also don’t need some idiot agent tracking to your door every few months and making a scene in town. It’s was best that I left.”

Amari rounds on him, back him into the desk near the door. “I’ll decide what’s best for my safehouse and those that come into it. _Not you._ I am two decades your senior and I will not be lectured on safe practices for this safehouse by you or anyone. And if you cannot accept that then it’s best that you take your things and leave, Deacon-” She thrusts her arm behind her, pointing at the cabinet where he keeps his caps. “- because you’re more of a danger acting like some martyr to the cause than you would’ve been convalescing in town where I could keep an eye on those who visited you.

“Not mention that Carrington should not have had to travel to Ticon to look after you.” Amari makes a noise of frustration. “And do you honestly think that leaving in the condition in you were in wouldn’t raise eyebrows in town? God, there wasn’t a day that went by in nearly a week that Hancock, or Magnolia, or someone from the Neighbourhood Watch didn’t drop by to ask where you’d gone. If you think your leaving was subtle, you’re _sorely_ mistaken.”

Deacon stares at her, eyes wide behind his sunglass, and ears ringing with her condemnation. He hadn’t considered…he didn’t realize…he didn’t _think._ He didn’t think. He was so wrapped up in his own shit, and his own issues, and his own damn arrogance that Deacon didn’t consider what was truly best for him and Amari. No, he tried to make his own wants more seem like it was what was best and she’s right, he has no business telling her how to run her safehouse. 

He’s so used to being alone and without anyone to make him question his actions or thought patterns that all it’s done is reinforce all the kooky and idiotic ideas he has. Deacon should know better than to make a decision in a vacuum, that he needs input so he doesn’t revert to some purist vault asshole who thinks everyone in the Wastes is below him -he likes to think he was _never_ that kind of person, but that’s the kind of mentality a lot of the people in the vault had, and as much as his dad’s morals and values overwrote that, it’s still a worm in his ear.

How many other things has he fucked up because there was no one around to call him on his bullshit? Jesus. Jolene, JH, Dez, Sly Nick, Piper, Ellie, Harkness, _Nick…_ he’s been a high-handed, condescending prick to them all. He’s got a lot to think about.

“I’m sorry,” Deacon says, honest regret in his voice, “I shouldn’t’ve and I won’t do it again. Or…I might, ‘cause that’s entirely possible, but don’t hesitate to call me out.” He kind of laughs, rubbing his ear. “Not that you have a problem with that or anything.

Amari gives a quick nod and steps back. “I’m glad that we got that sorted. Now, sit, and let me look at you.” She pulls out the chair tucked into the desk and Deacon sits. No need to get on her bad side more than once in a conversation.

She checks his pulse using a battered pocket watch, pokes his sides and tisks at the wince he gives when she hits the tender area of his ribs, frowns when she sees the fresh bandage on his wrist that Ellie put on that morning, and checks his pupil dilation with a small flashlight. Where did she find batteries for that thing?

“Well, you certainly look better than the last time I saw you. Your weight is back up and you no longer look like death, so for that, at least, I’m thankful. But I see that you’re injured.” The tone of Amari’s voice indicates that she’s looking for an explanation.

“Yeah…well, I had a bit of trouble on my last run. Doctor Sun, in Diamond City, has been lookin’ after us, to the detriment of my cap stash.”

Amari raises an eyebrow. “As much as I’d like to know more about it, I suppose that it’s not my place to pry. And I see now why you’re here. You would’ve avoided me forever if I didn’t have your caps, hmm?”

“Me? _Naw._ That doesn’t sound like me. At all.”

Nick snorts. 

“My thoughts exactly, Mr. Valentine. Well, they’re as you left them.”

Deacon stands from the chair and pulls the note Sun gave him out of his pocket. “Read this won’t you, Nick?” he asks, handing the note over. “Maybe it won’t seem like such a blow if you tell me how much it is while I stare at my meagre stash of caps.”

He heads over to the cupboard where his toolbox is, careful to keep a good distance between him and the room’s two Loungers, and his hand just closes around the handle when Nick speaks. 

“Uh, kid? You’d better look at this.”

“The whole reason I gave it to you was so I didn’t have to. Remember what Sun said? There’d be fainting.” Deacon pulls out his toolbox from the cupboard and glances back at Nick as Amari steps up to Nick’s shoulder. He turns the note for her to read and her eyebrows raise. 

“Deacon, Mr. Valentine is right. You should look at this.”

Curious now, and slightly worried at the looks on both of their face, Deacon crosses back to Nick and takes and the note from his hand.

For a moment, he thinks the message on it is almost worse than the exorbitant number his imagination came up with and Deacon stares at the scrawl unable to come up with words.

“Looks like Ellie was right,” Nick says eventually.

Deacon’s eyes flick up to Nick. “Maybe,” he hedges. “Still not enough proof he’s ex-Railroad. Coulda just run across Carrington on a mission or something.”

“It’s pretty obvious he knows about the Railroad, kid. ‘RR services are free’? That’s a big giveaway.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s ex-Railroad, just means he’s well-informed.”

“Could be a synth.”

Deacon shrugs. “Possible. They do get out and make it on their own without our help, still no proof, though. I think the more appropriate question in this is, how did Sun know _I’m_ Railroad.”

Amari holds up a hand to draw their attention. “Perhaps you should fill me in on this, Deacon.”

He nods and he and Nick explain the things they’ve noticed about Sun lately and then the subsequent conversation -debate- Deacon had with Ellie about it. Amari looks at them in slight surprise.

Deacon gets a slightly apologetic look on his face. “I _might_ have made Nick and Ellie tourists without talkin’ to HQ about it.”

“I see. Well, the more allies we have in Diamond City the better and technically, agents can recruit tourists without approval from their safehouse or HQ.” Amari folds her arms and sighs. “Still, I’m glad you aren’t my problem, Deacon.”

Deacon grins. “I bet Dez wishes she could say that too.”

Amari hums in agreement and considers the things they’ve said. “Deacon’s right, Mr. Valentine,” she says after a few moments. “Until Carrington corroborates the story one way or another, we cannot approach Sun as agents. He might simply have heard the name and is using it as a means to draw real agents out of cover, like you Deacon. He might not even know you’re Railroad and only suspects or is just trying to get a read on you. Diamond City is still a ‘no go’ for most agents and will be until the Institute agent is outed.”

Nick nods. “Fair enough, but when you do get it corroborated, let us know. Ellie’s got plans brewin’; I can tell.”

Amari looks to Deacon. “Now, I suppose the real question now is, who is going to bring this…request to Carrington. Should I or you?”

Deacon shrugs. “I have to make contact with HQ in the next coupla weeks, so I guess it just depends on how urgent we think this is. Nick, hand me your lighter.” 

Nick pulls it from his pocket and sets it on Deacon’s outstretched hand.

“Well, I’m inclined to let you handle it. You obviously know this Sun and will likely be better at explaining all this to Carrington than I,” Amari says as she grabs an ashtray from the desk. Deacon knows that she doesn’t smoke, but a lot of the agents that pass through do.

He flicks Nick’s lighter open and sparks a flame into life, then he passes the note over it so it catches fire. They can’t leave the note intact and risk someone else getting a hold of it. Everything worth telling to Carrington is in Deacon’s head anyways. Once the heat of the flames starts getting too intense for his fingers, Deacon lets the paper drop into the ashtray to finish burning. 

“Alright, I’ll talk to Carrington when I get a chance. In the meantime, this note doesn’t exist. Yeah?” Deacon looks to Amari and then Nick, they both nod. “Well, except to let me know that I own Sun 90 caps for those stims. Speakin’ of which…”

Deacon and Nick leave once Deacon has collected enough caps to cover his stim purchase, buy some more plasma cells and a couple hundred extra just in case. He tries to pay back Nick for his vest’s repair, but Nick refuses. 

“What the hell do I need caps for?” Nick asks. “I buy bullets, pay Ellie, and pay taxes. That’s it. I’ve got a tidy little stash that never gets used. If nothin’ else, be content to let those caps go back into Diamond City’s economy.”

Deacon sighs. “Okay, okay. For the sake of Diamond City’s economy.”

They leave The Memory Den once Nick has shared what appears to be mandatory flirting with Irma. It’s pretty entertaining to watch, and let’s be honest here, anything to keep his mind off the horrible closeness of all the Loungers on this level. Once outside they start across the street, to meet with Piper near the Old State House.

“You gonna tell Ellie about that note?” Nick asks.

“Might as well, and Arturo too, I suppo-”

A flash of blonde hair ahead of them in the thinning morning crowd catches Deacon’s eye, abruptly silencing him. He darts ahead through the crowd, not daring to call out a name in case he’s wrong, but trying to catch up to the woman. He hears Nick’s exclamation of “Kid?!” behind him as Nick pounds the pavement after him. As Deacon reaches the other side of the street the woman disappears inside The Third Rail. There’s a moment where he considers whether to follow, but Deacon decides that ultimately, he wants to know that if it is Georgie that she’s doing alright. 

He opens the door to the bar few moments after it shuts and skids to a halt inside. The blonde-haired woman is gone. Probably down the stairs, further into the club. As Deacon approaches the stairs, he thinks he sees a wisp of a ponytail go around the corner and out of sight. Then, a bulky arm bars his path.

“The Rail ain’t open, buddy,” a deep voice says to his right. Deacon turns slightly and takes in what is probably a member of the Neighbourhood Watch. No ghoul this time, though he might only work the night shift.

“Did you see a blonde just now?” Deacon asks, stepping back somewhat so it doesn’t look like he’s about to bum rush the guy.

The Watch guard gives him a once over. “Nope.”

_Liar,_ Deacon thinks, but the guy probably assumes he’s some crazy ex-boyfriend or something. It seems like he won’t solve the mystery today. Nick comes to a rest beside him. The Watch guy gives Nick a curt nod. 

“A friend of yours?” he asks, jerking his head at Deacon.

“Somethin’ like that,” Nick agrees, wrapping a hand around Deacon’s upper arm. “Hasn’t taken his meds yet today, but don’t worry. I’ve got him.”

The Watch guard huff a breath of laughter. “Hey, wish I could help, ya know? But no one downstairs ‘til 7. Your friend’ll just have to get his fix somewhere else.”

“He understands.” Nick looks at Deacon. “Right?”

Deacon nods. “Sure. No prob.”

Nick tugs him away from the stairs and out the door and doesn’t let go until they’ve rounded the corner and are in the narrow street that leads back to the entrance courtyard. 

“What was that about?” Nick asks voice pitched low as they pass others in the street.

“Oh, ya know, I just really needed a drink.”

Nick gives him a look and Deacon sighs.

“I thought I saw someone I knew. Just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“This blonde got a name?”

Deacon hesitates for a moment to tell Nick, but hell, he comes to this place more often than Deacon and people are more likely to tell Nick than they ever would be to Deacon’s ever changing face, so maybe he can find out if it was her or if he’s just being crazy about this.

“Georgie. ‘Course, I don’t know if that’s her real name, it’s possible she changed it, then or now.”

“Well, I’ll ask about her next time I’m through.”

Deacon gives Nick a quick smile. “Thanks, but uh…don’t tell her you know me. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”

“Ya know, kid, you should probably start tellin’ me all these little stories you got, ‘cause the longer you wait, the longer it’s gonna take to get through ‘em all.”

Deacon hums, not sure where to even begin forming a reply for that (somehow Nick’s prediction seems inevitable at this point), so instead he says, “I’m starvin’. Let’s stop and get some breakfast.”

Nick takes his evasion in stride and lets go of Deacon’s arm to follow him back to the mirelurk food stand. He stands in line behind two other people, fishing a few caps out of his pocket while Nick stands at his side watching the people around them. When it’s his turn at the counter, Deacon orders two mirelurk egg buns and hands over the appropriate caps. The buns are given to him in a couple ripped sections of an ancient newspaper and the two of them head back to the entrance courtyard.

Piper is waiting for them next to one of the courtyard’s lamp posts and catches sight of them once they exit the narrow street between the Old State House and the shops to the left. She pushes off the lamp post, flicking ash off her cigarette as she meets them. Deacon hands her a bun.

“Here.”

Piper looks at the food in some surprise and takes a bun. “Thanks. Didn’t exactly get time for breakfast. Uh…” She turns in her hand. “It’s a bread…ball.”

Deacon chuckles. “Sorta. It’s a bread ball with mirelurk eggs in it.”

Piper immediately makes a face. 

“No, no, this is good. Trust me. These people know how to make a mirelurk egg taste good,” Deacon says and hands his mirelurk bun to Nick. “Hold this, please, while I grab some plasma cells, then we can go.”

\- - - -

There are some areas of the Commonwealth that Deacon hasn’t bothered travelling to. Whether that’s because the Railroad doesn’t have a safehouse in that area or because there is seemingly nothing of interest there -whether that be a settlement or an interesting area of salvage. The airport is one of those places, and as Nick leads them through the streets of Boston and toward the bridge that’ll take them to Ticonderoga (if they were headed that way), Deacon realizes why. The airport is on an island of sorts away from the main city and the only way to get there on foot is to cross three different bridges going north, north-west, and then south. 

So most of the day is eaten up simply travelling to that island. They hit the outskirts of Bunker Hill sometime in the mid afternoon, and don’t arrive at the doors of the RobCo service center until the sun is casting long shadows on the ground. Judging by the growling of Deacon’s stomach, it’s probably sometime around supper or later. 

They hit a few roaming raiders near Ticon, and the area around Bunker Hill was clear of any nasties, but the island the airport is on is rife with feral ghouls and that slows their progress. The zombies seem to crawl out of every available crack and crevasse. It’s really annoying, and few of them manage to get close enough to body check various members of their trio. It’s not a life-threatening injury, but for him and Piper, it knocks the air out of them.

The one good thing about all the ferals (if there is such a silver lining), is that this area probably hasn’t been heavily scavenged, so Deacon is hopeful about finding the kind of things he needs for his amplifier. 

Once they’ve dispatched the ferals in the area around the service center (or, at least no more attack them), they head to the double doors. A pair of steel jobies with corroded brass handles. Deacon brushes his hand across the giant steel sign on the side of the building that proudly declares that this place was a ROBCO Sales and Service Center. If Deacon was more atheistic and less agnostic, he might consider Robert House his version of god. 

Nick tries the door handle and makes a noise of frustration when it doesn’t budge. “Locked.”

“Don’t you just hate that?” Deacon asks, moving to stand next to Nick and pulling out his trusty screwdriver and a bobby pin. “Like how _dare_ they lock the doors during a nuclear bombing? _Really._ Some people.”

Piper and Nick laugh slightly as Deacon bends the bobby pin open and sets to picking the door. Nick and Piper watch the street around them, with Piper glancing down at this work every so often. She’s been known to pick a few locks if the need arises. 

The lock is stubborn. More so than Deacon would expect for a door like this, that is, one that leads into a retail store. This strikes him more like a lock he might find into an old military outpost or something and is taking him a lot longer to pick than normal. After a minute or so of frustration, Deacon tosses the bent bobby pin away and starts digging for the old key he ground down. 

“Too difficult for ya, Rhett?” Piper asks with a smirk and Deacon pauses slightly in his search, feeling a pang of consciousness. Every time she’s said that name today he’s been feeling especially bad about it. Amari reaming him out earlier, rightly so, has made him question a lot of decisions he’s been making and somehow keeping Piper out of the loop doesn’t seem right anymore.

“Just need a different tool, should be unlocked in no time.” He pulls out the key he modified to have even, small bumps all along its edge. It’s a trick Jericho showed him to get into places that a standard bobby pin wouldn’t pick. Didn’t work on every tough lock (safes, in particular, required a bobby pin’s deft touch), but it worked on a few of them. “Also, uh…I actually go by Deacon.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Piper turn give him a critical look and Nick stiffens slightly in surprise.

“Uh, what now?” she asks.

Deacon tries for a bit of levity as he inserts the bump key into the lock. “Me Deacon. You Piper.”

“Ha. Cute. What are you saying? You changed your name or…?”

Deacon uses the end of his screwdriver to smack the end of the key and turns it in the lock a second afterwards. The tumbler gives, turning with him, and the door unlocks. 

“That’s a neat trick, you’ll have to teach me that,” Piper notes, “Still want an answer, though.”

“Inside, yeah? Never know who’s listenin’.”

Piper raises a skeptical eyebrow but throws up her free hand in agreement with Deacon’s paranoia when he doesn’t continue. Nick gives him an odd look that Deacon can’t quite parse, but it doesn’t seem to be disapproving.

Deacon heads inside first, with Piper and Nick on his heels. A locked door along with an area full of ferals usually means that there won’t be human baddies inside a place, but more ghouls are likely, so they keep their weapons ready. The door opens into a small waiting area with a couch tucked into a corner that’s slowly rotting, to the right the room opens up into a badly damaged space with about fifteen different terminals in varying states of operation. Some are completely destroyed, others look like they might still function if were power in the building still. There’s an overpowering smell of mould and rot and as they venture further in Deacon can see that a section of the roof has crumbled, allowing the elements to ravage the room.

Weak light filters in through the grimy windows and the ceiling hole and Deacon hopes that there is some electricity still flowing, because he’ll never get everything done before they lose the sunlight; it also means that they’ll have to find some half-decent hole to crash in for the night because there’s no way they’ll be able to travel back to Diamond City today. 

They move to the back of the showroom and follow a hall that leads to back storage area and service bay on a level below a catwalk they head out on, checking for ferals as they go. Surprisingly, there are none. The smell of rot and mould is much less in the basement; instead, the simple scent of damp concrete greets them. There are a few working lights in this area and that bodes well for the work Deacon will have to do. He also notes a strange depression in the concrete wall to their right that doesn’t seem to have any reason for existing, but the lighting is poor there so it's possibly a trick of the light. 

Once they’ve made a cursory check of the space, they take a seat on a few battered and dusty chairs in the old service bay and pull out some rations.

Piper cracks open a can of purified water and takes a swig before she pins him with her gaze. “So, _Deacon_ , seems like you have a few things to tell me.”

He nods and opens his mouth to start explaining but the words won’t come. He’s not sure where to start. Deacon closes his mouth and sighs, this is suddenly really hard.

“Any day now,” Piper says as she pulls out some dried radstag and a mutfruit.

“Never did like the name Deacon, myself,” Nick says after a moment of silence. “For all your creativity kid, surely you coulda picked a better code name.”

Piper looks between the two of them but keeps quiet. She seems to understand that this is Nick trying to make it easier for Deacon to talk about.

“Yeah? Like what?”

Nick shrugs. “I don’t know, Benedict? Marc Anthony?”

“Benedict would become ‘Ben’ and Marc Anthony would be either Marky Mark or Tony, and can you see me as any of those nicknames?”

Nick looks him over, considering. “Yeah, you’re right. Those don’t suit you. How about Macbeth?”

Deacon kind of laughs. “Yeah, but then no one would be allowed to say my name. They’d all be like ‘That Dude Named After the Scottish Play’.”

“Didn’t think your organization was that superstitious.”

“The Railroad isn’t superstitious, Nick. We’re paranoid.”

And there it is. Nick provided the perfect set up and he knocked it out of the park. 

Piper makes a noise of surprise. “The Railroad?! You’re with _The Railroad?_ Jesus…I wasn’t even sure they existed. I mean, there are rumours, but…”

“That’s kinda the point.”

“So, what we’re you doin’ in Diamond City? Don’t you guys like free synths, take the fight to The Institute, etcetera, etcetera?” Piper has her ‘investigative journalist’ face on and as dug out a little notepad and pencil.

Deacon nods and tries to paint a picture of the work he was doing in Diamond City and a vaguer one of the things he’s currently doing. Even though he’s letting her in on this secret, he can’t give away all the things he’s doing or has done for The Railroad.

When he gets to the part about the Institute infiltrator in Diamond City, Piper’s focus gets razor sharp. 

“Who?” she demands, as though Deacon talking about it has confirmed something for her.

Deacon shrugs. “Not sure. Have a couple suspects, but there’s no definitive proof one way or another.”

“And?”

“And you can’t go around tellin’ anyone this stuff. Any of it.”

Piper holds up two fingers. “Scouts honour. Not that I was a scout or anything, but unless I get evidence from another source I won’t repeat what you’ve told me.”

Deacon supposes that with a journalist, that has to be good enough.

“I figure there’s two main suspects: Malcolm Latimer and Mayor McDonough.”

Piper sucks in a breath and then leans forward. “McDonough,” she asserts. “That sonuvabitch acts far too often against the interests of Diamond City for it to be anyone else. Latimer only cares about caps, but McDonough cares for everything _but_ Diamond City.”

“Could very well be, but unless we could actually catch him declaring his undying love for The Institute there really isn’t much we could do.”

“The hell we can’t. McDonough’s term is up next year. So maybe we can’t point a finger and accuse him of being a stooge for The Institute, but we can knock his smug ass out of office.” Piper grins. “That would be a far better victory anyways.”

Deacon and Nick share a look.

“Well, funnily enough, Nick and I had a similar thought just the other day.”

“Well, it seems like I’ve been left outta a lot lately, but what’s this thought?”

Nick leans back in his chair, pulling out his cigarettes. “You tell her kid, it was your suggestion.”

“I think Ellie should run for mayor.”

Piper looks between them, a smile dawning on her face. “That’s…brilliant. Oh, she’s perfect! A great story of survival in Goodneighbour, starting again in Diamond City. She’s friends with like _everyone,_ and Ellie is always talking about improvements to be made to the infrastructure. That’s a helluva campaign starting point. I mean, we’d have to work out a few more platform points, but-”

“Before you elect yourself campaign manager, Piper,” Nick starts, smoke curling out his mouth as he speaks, “you should know that we haven’t talked with her about it yet.”

“Well when you do, I want to be there. She’ll probably try and find an excuse or two, but I’m sure we could convince her.” Piper finishes her can of water and puts the empty in her bag. “So, should we find one of those things for my computer and look for whatever it is that you need before it gets too dark for us to find a place to camp?”

Deacon and Nick agree, putting away their things and standing. Piper and Nick start heading back up the ramp to the upper level where the showroom floor is, but Deacon heads over to the strange depression in the concrete wall he noted earlier. He wants to check and make sure that it isn’t something special. Upon closer inspection, he finds a large metal rectangle box bolted to the wall, mostly hidden in the dark, and the depression beside it where the light is just barely catching, it is larger than he initially thought -about 6 inches wide and a foot long. 

He touches the depression, wondering at its perfect lines and thinking maybe a key to a safe or something is hidden here. Though the rectangular box beside it is odd, it could just be an access point for the store’s wiring. As he presses along the small indentation, Deacon finds it has a bit of give so he presses harder; he hears a click, then a whirr and just barely manages to snatch his hand back before the depression flips around to reveal a military grade retina scanner. Like the ones he saw in Raven Rock, Fort Independence, and Virtual Strategic Solutions Inc. once upon a time.

“Uh…guys?” Deacon calls, backing up slightly and looking for a mobile light source. He can hear Nick and Piper turn around on the ramp to join him.

“What?” Piper asks. “Find something?”

Deacon points at the newly revealed retina scanner and then turns back to the task of finding a light. There’s a trouble light set up over the workstation with a light bulb that’s burnt out, but its cord should be long enough to provide proper light if he could steal a working bulb from another light. Upstairs, in the showroom, is probably his best bet since there doesn’t seem to power up there, so the bulbs are probably still good. He yanks the trouble light from its hook and shoves it in Nick’s arms as moves up beside Deacon, a partial inquiry on his lips.

“Wha-?”

“I need light,” Deacon says and starts running up the ramp. “I’m gonna check the showroom for a few bulbs. Drag that over to the scanner.” It’s less of a request and more of a demand, but there’s a giddy, urgent energy that’s taken over him at this discovery. “Please?” Deacon tosses over his shoulder as his manners revive themselves. 

In the showroom, he raids a couple light bulbs from the RobCo Sales and Service sign next to the desk as they seem to be the only ones that aren’t the long tube fluorescents. Back in the service bay Nick has drug the trouble light and its cord over as best he can to the retinal scanner, it doesn’t quite reach all the way, but the light should be strong enough for Deacon to work in.

Piper has taken a seat in one of the chairs again, twisting slowly back and forth as she watches Deacon screw in another light bulb that immediately lights up and shines it on the scanner. 

“What is it?” she asks, rolling closer, and peering at the tech now that it’s clearly lit.

“Better yet,” Nick adds, “What’s it doin’ here?”

“No idea,” Deacon replies, “but this is so _awesome!_ ” He pokes around the scanner, careful not to activate it. Then looks over at the rectangle box bolted to the concrete wall. “I think this is a junction box of some kind. If I can get to the wires I might be able to open the door.”

“Uh...what door?” Piper asks.

“The one that this retinal scanner opens.”

“Oooh, it’s hidden. Like a top-secret government thingy. Neat. Though, how do you plan on breaking into something like that? Pretty sure they had safeguards against that kinda thing. Ya know, so those ‘Commie bastards’ wouldn’t steal secrets.” Piper’s chair squeaks slightly as she twirls in it. 

“Well…I might have read a thing about these scanners once. And that thing I read might have been a government report about a flaw in retinal scanners. And that flaw might be somethin’ I could exploit.”

“ _Might_ being the key word here,” Nick notes. 

“And where did you read this mythical information?” Piper asks with a skeptical eyebrow raised.

“Maybe it wasn’t so much ‘read’ as it was ‘shown’ to me by these guys who liked to… _gather_ technology, and I maybe used it once at an old military base full of nuclear warheads.”

“Maybe? Might? You don’t sound particularly confident,” Piper says.

“Hey, I’m still here aren’t I? If I messed up back at the other place there’d just be a radioactive pile of goo instead of this mug.”

Piper rolls her eyes. “Okay then, open the door.”

Deacon gives her an expression of mock hurt. “You don’t believe I can do it?”

“Fixin’ my crappy terminal is one thing. This? This is a whole n’other ballpark.”

“I think that’s a challenge, kid,” Nick says with a smirk. 

“I think so. Well, let me show you some magic.”

\- - - - -

Ultimately, it ends up being somewhat less magical than Deacon had hoped. 

Mostly because he has to mess around with a scrounged terminal for a couple of hours trying to find the set of wires that will allow him to get to a point where he can hack into the door control. He knows from past experiences that going straight at the door’s encryption isn’t going to work, but these systems have a flaw in their implementation that can be exploited if you find the right area to start. And since everything is encrypted it takes him a while to decide that the area he’s sort of half hacked isn’t the right area and thus he has to start all over again. 

The other thing that slows him down is that fact that he hasn’t messed around with this level of programming since he was last in the Capital and helping the Brotherhood, so his memory of commands that a terminal recognizes is somewhat foggy. Thus, he must guess at several commands until he lands on the right ones. 

Yeah. Not magical at all.

Plus, there was the whole bit about trying to get access to the wiring in the first place. The metal rectangle was bolted to the wall and Deacon had already returned the sockets he borrowed from the Science! Center. There was one wrench in the toolbox, but only Nick had the strength to loosen the bolts from the wall. Deacon set up his terminal while Nick did that, but the entire thing is an exercise in first-class, grade-A, scaver’s slog. Which again, isn’t something he’d done since the Capital and it makes him realize _why_ he hasn’t bothered with it since then.

In the end, though, Deacon prevails. He finds the right wire, hacks into the right encryption, side-channels his way into the door controls, and gets to the point where he’s finally ready to force the door. He likes to think there isn’t a piece of technology out there that can best his best effort. Sure, it may take several hours, or days, or months, or whatever, but in the end, his pure pig-headed stubbornness will carry the day.

“Okay. I think I’m ready to give this a go,” Deacon says, sitting back from the terminal and cracking his back along the back of the chair.

“ _Finally,_ ” Piper groans. “I was dying of boredom over here.”

“Well you won’t be in a second, ‘cause if even half of what I think is behind this door, it’s gonna be so awesome.”

“Here’s hopin’.”

“Okay, Nick,” Deacon turns to face him, “I need you to activate the scanner and stand in front of it like you’re waitin’ to get an eyeball scanned. If I do this right, I should be able to replace your data with that of the last accepted user.”

Nick nods and steps into place. Piper moves to peer over Deacon’s shoulder as Nick activates the scanners and stoops to be at the right level. After the machine makes a beeping noise to confirm its activation, Nick realizes that he’s still wearing his hat and hastily tugs it off. 

“It’ll take about 15 seconds, so don’t move,” Deacon says fingers hovering over the keyboard. There’s a slip second window for the switch to work, right at the end of the scan when the system is about to kick back that there are no matches. He has to shove the last user’s retinal imagine in place of the one it’s scanned hope that the system accepts it. 

He counts down in his head and right at the 14-second mark hits the key that’ll make the switch. There’s a noise as the scan is completed and then silence as the systems tries to decide whether or not the slight glitch that it just perceived is enough to warrant a second scan or if it accepts it as a margin of error. Deacon holds his breath, already questioning his capabilities in this, thinking about how to try again if the system rejects the swap, while simultaneously dying to know what’s below this RobCo Service Center.

Suddenly, there’s the sound of locks being disengaged and a hiss of air smacks against Deacon’s side and ruffles Piper’s hair. They all turn to look as a section of the concrete wall is popped back and then spins back and out of the way revealing a gear door much like those that seal a Vault away. They move forward and watch as the gear is pulled out of its casing and rolls open to the right. A second gear door is behind it and rolls open to the left. Another three heavy doors open behind that, and then they are faced with a downward sloping hallway of concrete, lit by flickering lights.

Part of Deacon feels like dancing about in excitement because he opened the door, but more importantly, this might be a secret robot factory and it’s entirely possible that he’ll die of the sheer excitement of that alone. However, the fact that this place requires 6 heavy duty vault like doors before you can step foot inside is somewhat worrisome and dampens his excitement. 

As does the three open, two-foot-thick, steel vault doors that are at the end of the concrete hallway. A plaque on the wall beside them names this place as:

**Robotics**  
**Technology**  
**Facility**  
**RB-2851**

Behind them, Deacon can hear the doors they walked through closing. Nick and Piper glance back. 

“Uh, we can open those again, right?” Piper asks looking around at the concrete hall somewhat nervously. 

“Of course, way easier now that we’re on the inside,” Deacon replies with confidence that he doesn’t quite feel.

There’s a sudden buzz of static that causes them all to jump slightly, and a mechanical voice tells them that, “Final confirmation needed to initiate Lockdown Mode Omega procedures.”

Piper lets out a nervous laugh. “Uh…that doesn’t sound like we’re gettin’ outta here.”

“But it hasn’t been initiated, so as long as we don’t trigger it, or better yet, figure out how to back the security level down, we’ll be fine.”

“Any idea how to do that?” Nick asks. 

Deacon shrugs. “Mainframe access would be a good start, in the mean time try to avoid trippin’ any of the security measures this place might have.”

“Easier said than done,” Nick notes and tugs his hat back on.

“Great. We’re gonna die in a concrete tomb.”

Deacon starts forward through the steel vault door openings. “Don’t panic. We’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Piper snorts. “Lately, that doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

“Yeah, I lie about a lot of things. Important things. Stupid things. So, you’re probably right not to trust the things I say, but-” Deacon turns to face Piper, “trust that I will do everything in my power to make sure that you get home to Nat.”

She looks at his face for a long moment and then nods. “Okay. I can get behind that.”

From beside her, Nick gives him a smile. 

They continue on.

At the end of the three bank-vault-like doors, there is a security station with a skeleton slumped over the desk and a pair of glass hanging askew on its face. Nick peers at the skull -there’s a very obvious hole in the back of its head that has cracks spidering out from it.

“Close range,” Nick says. “Execution looks like.”

“Wow. Feeling so much better about this place,” Piper mutters.

“Well, whoever killed him is probably dead too,” Deacon says and shoves the skeleton back off the desk. Piper makes a noise of distaste. “Give me a boost would ya, Nick. Might be something useful back there.”

Nick threads his hands together for Deacon to step in and says, “There is a door.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably locked. Hello, security station.” He steps in Nick’s hands and jumps through the window, landing awkwardly on the skeleton, crushing a few bones underfoot. “Doin’ that was easier.”

Deacon shuffles through the papers on the counter and then pokes through the things on the lower shelves. He finds a small lockbox with the lock on it busted and brings it up on the counter to open. Inside there is a single keycard with the facilities number printed on it and the name: Anise Ciroletti – CR Division.

“Bingo,” Deacon says and holds up the card. “This should help.” 

Piper takes it from his hand to look at.

“Don’t ya think it’s a little odd that the lock’s broken?” Nick asks, turning the box to get a better view. 

Deacon shrugs and then starts climbing the shelves to jump out the window. “All the people who worked here probably had to turn in their cards before they left, so someone must’ve killed the security officer to get the cards after the bombs fell.”

“And what? Left one behind?”

Deacon lands on the ground between Piper and Nick; Piper hands the keycard back. “Sure. Coulda a been in a rush.”

Nick looks dubious.

“It’s a 200-year-old crime, detective. Even murder expires after that long when all parties are dead. Just be glad you got to skip all that ‘End of the World’ fun time.”

“Yeah, I did. Nick didn’t though.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence. Then Piper speaks.

“So…let’s keep moving, yeah? Underground bunkers and stomping on skeletons aren’t really my thing. The quicker we get our stuff and get out, the better.”

Nick and Deacon nod and they move on, passing by a set of lockers that were probably for personnel or guests to the facility. After taking a quick right, they end up in a decontamination hall and Piper mumbles something about a virus that might kill them all as they walk through the arches. Next to the decon area is a security room; a pair of windows let them see in and Deacon points out the elevator in the back. 

Ahead of them, the functioning lights of this hall give way to flickering and malfunctioning ones, and in the dark, the faint glow of red lights can be seen. Deacon doesn’t know if the lights are red because of the current security level or if those are the only lights left that haven’t burn out. He’d rather not venture that way if the elevator works since it’ll probably take them to the central area of the complex, bypassing whatever else is here. They need to get to the Mainframe and downgrade the security level before they do any exploring. 

Underfoot, glass crunches as the walk and Deacon can see the shards of it around the windows. Probably blown out by the shockwave of the bombs shaking the ground. He leans through, careful not to catch himself on any of the pieces. There’s a security door at the end of the room, which is probably locked. Deacon grabs a hold of the window’s frame, meaning to hoist himself through so he could unlock the door, but Nick stops him.

“You’ll get cut up. Let me,” he says and Deacon steps back to allow Nick space. 

The edges of Nick’s coat catch slightly on the few shards of glass still wedged in place in the frame, and he makes a noise of annoyance. Not that the bottom of Nick’s coat is particularly solid or anything. Actually, now that Deacon thinks of it, the man really ought to get himself a new coat. Or at the very least, let Charlie Fallon fix it and maybe put in a few steel plates to protect himself from assholes with guns. Nick isn’t as squishy as Deacon, but he isn’t invincible either.

Nick hops down off the console he crawled over and heads to the security door as Deacon and Piper round the decontamination hall. They head to the elevator, which is down a short hall with filing cabinets on either side, choking out what little space there might have been. Deacon squeezes to the front and checks the computer. It has a slot to swipe a keycard on its side. Deacon swipes Ms. Ciroletti card and the computer springs to life. 

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink  
RB-2851: Elevator Access  
______________________________________________________________

Elevator Access Restricted.

Welcome back Dr. Anise Ciroletti. It has been 207 years, 11  
months, and 7 days since your last log in.

Unlock Elevator? Yes / No

Deacon manoeuvres to the selection to unlock the elevator and hits enter. The terminal asks him:

Do you have any guests Dr. Ciroletti? Yes / No

He hesitates at the question and then decides selects Yes. If the system still has a means of tracking personnel it’s better that it knows to expect three people rather than one. 

How many? 

Deacon hits the 3 key. The terminal processes his entry and then tells him:

Please make sure your guests have their badges and that they  
are accompanied at all time. The elevator is unlocked. Have a nice  
day, Dr. Ciroletti.

Deacon punches the elevator call button and they can hear the whirring and grinding gears as the elevator moves up toward them. 

“Think we need to be worried about that guest badges thing?” Nick asks. 

“No idea. Could’ve just been a personnel thing. Ya know, guys with guns checking clearance.”

“And if it’s not?” Piper asks. 

“Then we might have to fight some robots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the Shakespeare quotes Nick and Deacon volley back and forth:
> 
> That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark…-Macbeth (1.5.53)
> 
> Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath little gilded over your night’s exploits on Gad’s-hill…. -King Henry IV Part II (1.2.128)
> 
> Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpine's beauty. -Troilus and Cressida (2.1.30)
> 
> Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. -King Lear (2.7.70) Also, a gross = 144, 5 score = 100 so Deacon’s saying that Nick is at least 244 years old, and certainly more.
> 
> According to the Wiki, RobCo Unified Operating System is heavily based on the real world OpenVMS OS, which I spent an entire day researching command codes and sort of learning how to input them into a system like a terminal -the codes I've used here are mostly real with a little Writer MagicTM thrown in. I am continuously amazed at the stuff you can find on the internet.
> 
> Lastly, this may be the last chapter update until the new year. I have Christmas projects I've been putting off in lieu of working on this and I must get at them before the big day. Maybe I'll find time for it all, but just in case I don't, see you all in January and have a Merry Christmas/Whatever and a Happy New Year!


	23. We'll follow the old man wherever he wants to go, as long as he wants to go opposite to the foe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _BEATRICE: You have stayed me in a happy hour; I was about to_   
>  _protest I loved you._   
> 
> 
> _BENEDICK: And do it with all thy heart._
> 
> _BEATRICE: I love you with so much of my heart that none is_  
>  _left to protest._
> 
> _-Much Ado About Nothing (4.1.277)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blackletter, this is it. Don’t read at work. Haha. (Seriously, people, the sop…all the sop. _So much sop._ )

The elevator grinds and groans on its decent. So much so, that in his mind’s eye, Deacon’s sure there are sparks flying off the gears that drive winch. He tries not to imagine them plummeting to the bottom of the shaft when the brakes inevitably fail after 200-and-some-years of no service. It’s not working too well. Frankly, unless it’s a vault elevator, Deacon doesn’t trust it. 

At least he’s not the only one uncomfortable in the small metal box.

Piper is looking more uncomfortable than ever, but that’s understandable. Wasters don’t usually like underground bunkers or basements of buildings; it’s why there are so many agents that cycle through the Switchboard. Nick, on the other hand, isn’t phased. Probably because he knows he’ll survive the fall if there is one. Or maybe he figures that at least one of them ought to have their shit together since both Deacon and Piper are quietly freaking out. 

When the elevator comes to a safe and completely normal stop at the bottom floor and the doors slide open, they all hesitate to step out. The three of them point their guns out the door and are met with the peeling paint of the hallway wall. The elevator doors start to close after what they seem to deem enough time for the passengers to disembark, and Nick catches them with his free hand. They immediate retreat once again, but the three of them don’t step out. 

“Do you hear that?” Deacon asks, voice just above a whisper. 

He can hear a strange clacking noise echoing down the hall. It’s oddly metallic and yet light, like the noise that Nick’s skeletal fingers make when he drums them against a surface in impatience or annoyance. Only like, with a hundred times more fingers. 

“Yeah,” Nick replies. Oh good. He’s not imagining it.

“Kinda sounds like my printing press,” Piper says, “and I thought I was hallucinating it there for a second.”

“Still sane all around then, excellent,” Deacon says and then turns to Nick. “Any idea what it is?”

Nick listens for a moment longer. “Oddly enough, it reminds me of my old precinct’s bullpen and the detectives and officers typing on their terminals, openin’ and closin’ drawers, etcetera. Only thing is…it’s missin’ that human element, ya know? No voices or movement.”

“Great,” Piper sighs. “Robots.”

“Well, we’re not doin’ anything about it standin’ here, are we? Let’s go,” Deacon says and steps forward, out of the elevator, sweeping his plasma pistol right and then left. 

He makes note of the sharp corner down the right of the hall and the debris choking the right across from it; they’ll probably come back to that after they figure out the source of the noise. He heads left down the hall, toward the noise. 

Their boots crunch against paint chip and bits of ceiling tile that have come loose as they move as quietly as they can toward the noise. They might get lucky and their status as guests means that whatever robots are causing that sound will ignore them. If they’re unlucky…well, let’s just say that Deacon is hoping the assaultrons and the sentry bot are on another floor.

They come to a T in the hall. The noise the very loud now just beyond a door to their right. More of the hall extends off to the left, probably into an office. There’s also a small break station set into the wall. A placard tells them the door ahead of them is the Control Center. As Deacon move forward to hit the button that will slide the doors open automatically, Nick catches his arm. 

“I’ll go first,” he says. “Just in case.”

Deacon doubts that Nick will fair much better against a sentry bot’s missiles, but he’s not likely to get anywhere arguing the point with the man, so Deacon nods and steps back. Nick hits the button, the doors slide open (with a minor protest) and they file into the room behind Nick, guns ready. 

The noise in the room stops abruptly and Deacon stares in surprise and wonder. 

There are about 20 modified robobrains perched at computer stations, board read-outs, and various nob-turning stations in the U-shaped room. They’re mounted on brackets that climb the wall so that most of the robobrains are suspended above the group’s heads. There are also just the brainjars stacked, one on top of another and wired into six separate servers on the edges of the room.

As if that wasn’t unsettling enough, every one of the robots turns to stare at them the moment they enter the room. Their single optical receivers focusing and refocusing on them, seemingly trying to make sense of the intruders and stopping their various duties at their stations. After a moment of silence, Deacon lowers his gun and Nick and Piper follow suit. This seems to indicate to the robobrains that they aren’t a threat and they go back to their work, the clacking noise from before starting up again instantly.

“What the hell are those things?” Piper asks, wariness written all over her face. 

Deacon moves closer to one of the lower level robobrains, watching as it types on a modified keyboard, code scrolling across the screen faster than he can process. He’s never seen robobrains like this before, didn’t realize that they had applications outside of vault maintenance or military combatants. He loves this place already.

“They're called robobrains. As the name suggests, they’re robots with a human brain as a processor instead of a hard drive,” Deacon says as he looks around the room again. Is this the mainframe? Are these robots it’s maintainers? This is _sooo_ cool. He starts searching for a terminal he can access.

“Human? Like…dead people?” Piper asks peering at one of the robobrains. She must lean too close because the robot stops and spins to look at her and she stumbles back with a shriek. The robobrain goes back to its work.

“Easy,” Nick says, coming up beside her. “It’s not like these things can go anywhere. Besides, how would you like it if someone was breathin’ down your neck while you’re tryin’ to work?”

“And they’re not dead, they’re…repurposed,” Deacon adds. Ah! There it is. He finds the main terminal set in a large bank of dials and readouts on a raised platform with a bunch of dust and clutter on the desk. He sweeps it aside. 

“They’re creepy is what they are,” Piper says, sticking close to Nick as they move to where Deacon is. “Why would anyone want to put a human brain in a robot? That’s wrong on so many levels.”

Deacon taps the spacebar on the keyboard to bring the terminal out of standby mode and turns slightly to look at Piper. “A human brain is capable of remembering more commands and doing more sophisticated processing than a typical robot hard drive. After all, it’s already a computer of sorts. It just needs to be formatted right.” Deacon turns back to the terminal, checking for a keycard reader. “Probably why The Institute moved to the Gen 3s with all their organic parts. Much easier to get programmable sophistication when half the work is already done for you. Not that reprogramming a human brain isn’t inherently flawed. Robobrains tend to be kinda murder-y. Plus, that pesky thing with Gen 3s thinkin’ they’re real people and all,” he adds with a hefty bit of sarcasm.

He finds the card reader on the left panel, at least he thinks it’s the card reader because it doesn’t look like the one on he used on the elevator terminal. It’s a narrow slot, like a holotape reader, instead of a swipe one. Deacon turns Dr. Ciroletti’s keycard over, looking for any indication of which way to insert it into the reader. There’s a rather large hole on one end with a metal ring inserted it in, probably so it could be kept on a lanyard, which means that’s the top of the card. He inserts the other end first, gambling it’s the magnetic strip on the card is supposed to be facing down.

The terminal whirs for a moment as it processes the keycard, then this comes up on the screen:

Welcome to RobCo Industries (TM) Termlink  
RB-2851 Master Control & Mainframe Access  
_______________________________________________________________

USER: $Anise Ciroletti  
PASSWORD: |

Shit. He didn’t need a password last time. Obviously, there isn’t as much clearance required to get into the facility as there is for someone to access the mainframe. Really, he should have expected there to be more hacking before any of them could call it night, but it’s one thing to fool the retinal scanner on the outer door, it’s another to hack into a military mainframe terminal. He’s probably going to set off some alarms. Scratch that, _he’s going to set off alarms._

Deacon turns to Piper and Nick and tells them just that. “So, ya know, be ready for security measures,” he adds.

“Like?” Piper asks, glaring at the robobrains around them. 

Deacon hands his plasma pistol to Piper -it’s much stronger than her 10mm, and she takes it with a worried look. “Best case? A few dodgy protectrons.”

“Worst case?” Nick asks, glancing at the darkness beyond the control room’s windows.

“Military-grade robobrains and sentry bots.”

Piper and Nick swear.

Deacon turns back to the terminal. “Be ready,” he says and starts moves the cursor down a line so he can type in a few commands. He hacks into terminals on a semi-regular basis so he knows the commands well. Of course, this isn’t some long dead executive’s or raider’s repurposed terminal.

>$ SET TERMINAL/INQUIRE

RB-2851 Master

>$ SET FILE/PROTECTION=OWNER:RWED ACCOUNTS.Ciroletti

>$ SET HALTESTART/MAINT

Initializing RobCo Industries (TM) MR BOOT AGENT V.2.3.0

As soon as that last line finishes trailing across the screen, a window pops up and asks for a code to be typed in for access. Deacon grimaces as a ten-second countdown starts ticking on the bottom of the window. This is the security measure he had been expecting and soon enough they’ll know what kind of protocols there are for a mainframe breech.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1…

Alarms in the control room start sounding and shutters close on the outside of the windows. Piper starts at the noise and swears, and Nick just gets a grim look on his face. All the robobrains cease to work at their consoles and stare at the three of them, giving them what Deacon could only term ‘stink-eye’. Without their processing power, it’ll take longer to get the terminal to respond to his commands. 

Deacon focuses on the screen as the window disappears and his previous input is visible again. The screen continues loading from where the window had temporarily paused it.

RETRO BIOS  
RBIOS – 4.03.11.0084 EEF.E7.E8

Copywrite 2280-2285 RobCo Ind.

Upper mem 1GB ****Root (6B9)

The commands are processed with agonizing slowness and as the words tick across the screen, he stares in some surprise at the copywrite dates. Surely that must be a mistake. Deacon glances behind him, waiting for the synthesized voice of a sentry bot or the track of a robobrain to be heard over the klaxon. With the shutters over the control room’s windows, there’s nothing to see beyond the small robobrains staring at them. He checks the screen again and the cursor is blinking, ready for more input.

>$ MAINTENANCE MODE

>$ RUN DEBUG/ACCOUNTS.Ciroletti

Then, there’s a grinding noise heard above the din of the alarm sounding and the response from Deacon’s command is still ticking across the screen. He makes an impatient movement, knowing full well that won’t speed up the process. Nick and Piper aim their weapon at the far corner where the room’s second access is. The door had slammed shut when the alarm went off, but it’ll undoubtedly open for whatever is headed their way.

Suddenly, the klaxon goes silent and the door on the far end of the room bursts open and a military grade robobrain enters, firing its mesmetron followed by a few laser blasts that ping of the consoles around them. They all hit the deck, finding cover behind the console in the center of the room. The two robobrains that work at the console glaring at them as they all try and fit.

“Please tell me you’re almost through,” Piper says as the robobrain enters the room. 

Deacon opens his mouth to reassure her -though he’s not almost through, but the robobrain speaks first.

“I’m afraid I’m a very lethal killing machine,” it tells them as its tracks scrape on the metal floor.

Nick snorts, probably at the strangeness of the robot’s statement. There’s something decidedly unnerving about the chipper way robobrains apologize for attempting to kill you.

“Look, just try and keep it from firing on the main console and I’ll be in as quick as I can. And shoot for its brainjar, yeah?” Deacon says as the robobrain fires laser shot over the console their behind, pinging a couple of the small robobrains. Shit. That thing better not destroy them. The robobrain’s tracks grind against the floor as it turns, trying to find a better spot to attack from. Its wide base makes for very little room for movement, and the stairs just in front of the door, limit its ability to maneuver. The main console is clearly within the range of all its weapons.

He gives the two of them a moment to distract the robobrain before he launches himself from behind the console and toward the main terminal. It’s finally processed his request and kicked him over to the password guess screen -it probably has a technical name like Security Passphrase Reacquisition or something. There are about ten different words on the screen -facility appropriate ones like corpuscallum and metabotropic, generic ones like august2065 and 11032044, and a couple weird ones like bobisaprick and iamonfirerightnow. 

Passwords can say a lot about a person, but what Deacon wants to know is what password belongs to which user -specifically, Dr. Ciroletti. He glances at the attempt indicator on the top of the screen. 4 tries to get it right. (A burst of laser fire scorches the panel beside him and he crouches, Jesus this was a bad idea.) He always wondered who wouldn’t be able to remember their password upon seeing this screen. It just seemed silly to give them any more than a single try, since obviously, people have and do use it to exploit-

The wobbling blast from the robobrain’s mesmetron catches Deacon in the back of the head and like someone suddenly pulled a carpet out from under him, Deacon collapses to the ground. He hardly feels the impact, dazed and confused as he suddenly is. He stares the ceiling high above him as every thought slips from his grasp before they’re fully formed, like a wet bar of soap. Above him, there’s shouting.

“Deacon!”

“Get down, Piper!” Nick barks. 

There’s a scuffling sound across the floor and Deacon turns to face it, his movement slow.

Nick’s on the stairs next to him, facing outward. He tracks the robobrain’s movement on the far end of the room with his hand cannon. From his position, Deacon can see the robot as it moves back and forth on the floor, trying to find a way to get closer without destroying the equipment. Nick fires at it, catching the robot at the shoulder and puncturing its hydraulics. He wishes he had time to cover his ears, now along with the fuzz of the mesmetron shot, his ears are ringing. 

Oil spurts out the newly created hole and the robobrain beings to lose functionality in its arm. “If I could feel pain I might be inclined to stop this fight. Oh well…”

It takes about ten or so minutes for the effects of a mez to wear off -he’s had unfortunate first-hand experience with them- but Deacon tries to gather thoughts into coherent sentences anyways. The words are there, floating annoyingly out of reach. Nick grabs his arm and drags him to the far side of the center console. If the other door was open, Nick would likely drag him all the way out, but they’re trapped in this space until they can lift the security lockdown.

Laser fire comes less frequently now, but it’s still striking the small robobrains ever third or fourth shot. 

“Is he hurt?” Piper asks, kneeling next to Deacon, and using the robobrain at the console for cover, looking for injuries.

“He’s insensate. If that’s because his brain is fried or he hit the ground, I don’t know,” Nick replies. 

“Mezzed,” Deacon mumbles. It’s the only word he can manage, though he’s pretty sure they won’t know what that means.

“Mazed?” Piper asks, popping up to take a few shots at the robobrain. He can hear the plasma sizzle against metal casing of the robot.

“Think that was an ‘e’, not an ‘a’,” Nick replies. 

“Well, that isn’t even a word.”

“Don’t think ‘mazed’ is either.”

“Stop…” Deacon says, lacking his usual loquaciousness, fighting for every coherent word. “Shoot…the jar.” He clumsily taps the top of his plasma pistol that Pipe is pointing at the floor, then Nick’s hand cannon, hoping they understand that they should shoot the robobrain in that order. 

The jar that houses the brain is reinforced to withstand the impact of a bullet, even one fired from Nick’s gun. He’d have to hit the same spot multiple times to pierce the glass and allow a single shot through, however, plasma can dissolve the glass enough and weaken its structural integrity enough to allow a bullet through on the first fire. He probably should have said this before, but he was hoping to get the alarm ended before they had to really engage in a fight with the thing. Granted, he did specifically say to shoot the brainjar.

He taps the plasma pistol again, then Nick’s gun again, emphasizing plasma first, then a .223. Unfortunately, Nick gives him a blank look. Deacon frowns. Or least, he hopes his face moves in an approximation of a frown. It’s hard to tell how much of his brain signals are reaching the parts of him that he can’t see.

“Shoot…jar,” he says and makes the same motion again.

“Oh!” Piper exclaims. “First me, then Nick. Got it.”

Nick gives Deacon one last dubious look before he faces Piper. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Piper’s grips tightens on the plasma pistol. “Probably shoulda paid more attention to my dad’s shooting lessons, but here goes nothing.” 

She rises and aims beyond what Deacon can see. His plasma pistol goes off twice and her face doesn’t betray any disappointment over missing. As she fires the robobrain tells Piper that she’s going to die and that it's really sorry about that, then several laser shots sail overhead. Piper ducks, trying to dodge them, but a couple catches her, one in the arm and another frighteningly close to her neck. She screams as the laser chars a path through the meat of her upper arm and shoulder.

Nick spares her a glance but rises in her place; he knows that any moment of concern isn’t going to help them right now. Deacon brings his hand up to clumsily cover his ears while Piper squirms in pain beside him, swearing a colourful litany. As much as he is concerned for her, he’s frankly surprised that she managed to avoid getting shot all this time. The robobrain’s sensors probably need a good calibrating. 

Nick’s gun goes off once, twice, three times. Each shot seeming louder than the last. Surely, one bullet would have pierced the brainjar if Piper caught it with the plasma, but Nick’s probably being thorough. Much to the detriment of their ears. Deacon looks up at Nick, watching and waiting for an indication that their current robot problem has been solved. After a moment, he appears to be satisfied and Deacon peels his hands off his ears. Frankly, it didn’t help much.

Nick crouches next to him and gives him a once over, probably concerned about Deacon’s lack of chatter. Deacon waves him off, pointing at Piper. Laser fire, fortunately, self-cauterizes so she isn’t bleeding all that much, just a bit of blood plasma leaking down her bare arm and staining the t-shirt she’s got on. Both wounds are red and ugly, though, and will likely cause her grip and movement problems until she gets a stim to weave the damaged muscle back together. 

Deacon digs one out of his bag, his stupid and slow limbs fighting him every step of the way, and hands it to Nick. A stim won’t help him recover from the effects of the mesmetron, but hopefully, once Piper is taken care of Nick can pick up where he left off. After all, the detective does claim to have a way with computers. 

Nick doesn’t waste any time in administering the stim to Piper, and the flesh starts to close and heal under its effect. The wounds will be stiff and sore for several days at least as the new tissue is pulled and flexed into proper working order, but that’ll be much easier to bear than a burnt hole.

Once that’s done, Nick turns to him again and Deacon points to the terminal. As he is, there’s no way Deacon will be able to finish hacking into the terminal, and he very much doubts that one robobrain is all the resistance they’ll meet. The alarm must be shut off. 

“Kid, that’s a little above my capabilities,” Nick says, glancing back at the terminal.

“Almost…done,” Deacon replies. “You finish.”

“Is anyone else weirded out by his succinct sentences?” Piper mutters with a grimace as she pokes at her healing arm. “Fried brain is lookin’ more and more likely.”

“Don’t jinx it, Piper,” Nick replies with a grim frown, and then hostlers his gun and heads to the console. “Jesus,” Nick mutters as he looks at the screen. “Never thought guessin’ a password would be this stressful.”

Piper shifts against the console to look at Deacon. “Ya figure another one of those things will be comin’ for us?”

Deacon nods.

“Well isn’t that just great. Why the hell did I agree to come along on this stupid adventure?” Piper asks with a sigh. “Got any more of these?” She pops the cell on his plasma pistol after taking a moment to find the latch, wincing as the movement pulls at the still healing flesh.

Deacon starts digging for his cells in his toolbelt, but trying to get his hands in the pockets on his belt is far more difficult than digging in the bag that Ellie gave him. After a moment of watching him struggle Piper bats his hands away. 

“Never thought I’d get this close to your-”

Whatever witty remark she’s about to say is interrupted by what Deacon will freely admit is one of the scariest sounds anyone will ever encounter in the Wastes: the synthesized voice of a sentry bot.

“Hostile detected. Commencing neutralization.”

They all freeze.

“ _Nick…_ ” Piper says, urgency in her voice. “Please, please, _please_ tell me that you’re through and are just about to turn of this friggin’ alarm.”

“I’m trying to get rid of a few duds; we only get one shot at this.”

“So, in other words, no.”

Nick shoots her an impatient, ‘I’m doing the best I can,’ look and goes back to the terminal. Piper plucks a plasma cell from Deacon’s belt and shoves it into his pistol, her knuckles white on the grip.

“It has a missile launcher. How am I supposed to fight it with this thing?” Piper mutters to herself as if she didn’t have the pinnacle of military firearms in her hand. Plasma will melt through anything, even the armour of a sentry bot and Deacon doubts it’ll fire its missiles in this space and risk destroying all the small robobrains. No. It’ll probably just fire burst shots from it’s Gatling laser or minigun, whichever it happens to have… that will likely destroy everything anyways. 

The grinding wheels of the sentry bot start echoing down the short hall and past the door that the robobrain first entered. Deacon struggles to pull himself upright enough to peer around the console. Piper makes a hissing noise and tells him to get down, but he ignores her for a moment and looks at the door. 

It doesn’t seem wide enough to allow for the wheelbase of a sentry bot, but of course, if you’re going to have a sentry bot patrol your building, then why wouldn’t you make sure it could fit in your doorways? Too bad the robobrain isn’t closer to the door to block the entrance to the sentry bot, because even if it can’t fit in the door, its weapon can. Deacon slides back down the console to sit on the floor and looks at Nick’s back, willing him to go faster. 

The rolling of the sentry bots wheels crunches the two-hundred-year-old debris as it moves to the control room. Nick crouches in front of the terminal, attempting to make himself as small a target as possible while he frantically pours over the screen. Piper shakes a little beside Deacon, her grip threatening to crush his plasma pistol, as she breathes deliberately slow, trying to calm herself. 

“Warning: use of lethal force is authorized,” the sentry bot tells them as it rolls to a stop outside the door. 

Nick twists to look behind him, but there isn’t any immediate gunfire and Nick goes back to the terminals. Deacon peers around the console again. It seems he was right. The door isn’t quite big enough for it to fit in. 

“Well?” Piper demands in a low voice, leaning over his side.

“Too wide,” he replies, equally quiet. Then, the sentry bot retreats from the door. 

Piper peers over the console and the sinks down again. “Oh thank, God-”

Her words are cut off by the loud revving sound of a fusion core powering up, and Deacon and her look at one another in blatant fear. 

“ _Nick,_ seriously, any day now,” Piper hisses, her voice almost lost in the noise of the sentry bot’s wheels squealing on the laminate floor of the hall.

Suddenly, there’s loud crashing noise and the room shakes, dust falling all around them from where it had been peacefully perched for the last 200-years. There’s a moment of silence and Deacon looks around the console. The sentry bot has rammed into the doorway of the room, bowing it in slightly with the force of the collision. Then, it reverses, the sound of metal scraping against metal and the debris hitting the ground as it moves back to ram the doorway again.

Deacon ducks behind the console as the sentry bot screams forward again and slams against the too small doorway away. Metal squealing and bending further, the plating on the walls tumbling off and hitting the ground, the room shaking so much that the liquid gel in the brainjars of the robobrains sloshes. The sentry bot’s two front wheels were almost through, another hit like that last one will send it careening into the room for sure. This time it takes more effort for the sentry bot to draw back from the doorway, but after a moment it breaks away.

“ _Nick,_ ” Deacon says, knowing that pestering him about the damn password isn’t helping but the fucking thing is about to become a serious problem. 

“I know,” Nick snaps. Then, he looks skyward in a silent prayer and hits a button on the keyboard. They all hold their breath in tense anticipation and the sentry bot’s wheels begin to squeal against the floor once again, its engine revving so high that it's a banshee wail, but then suddenly it stops and dead silence reins. Nick gives a slight cheer. “It says that the doctor needs to update her biometrics and select a new password.”

Deacon gives Piper a shove and nods toward the terminal. 

“Me?”

Deacon nods. He’d like to explain further, but he just doesn’t have the words right now, so he pushes her again, with slightly more impatience, not knowing how long they have before the pause in the security alarm runs out and the sentry bot resumes its ramming of the door. Piper frowns, shoving his plasma pistol back in his hands and cautiously stands, peering behind her at the doorway. Then, Nick shows her what to do. 

Deacon’s hand curls around his pistol, taking comfort in its familiar weight and lets his head fall back against the console. This was stupid. Technology makes him stupid in his eagerness to get at it. Robots make him stupid. He’s just stupid. God. They almost didn’t make it out of this place, and for what? So, he could get a few parts to build an amplifier? Hell, he could’ve gone to an electronics shop for that. 

“There,” Piper says and stands back from the console and from the hall they hear the sentry bot: “Security lockdown lifted, have a nice day,” before it clanks back away to whatever hole it crawled out of.

The shutters on the windows retreat and the lights beyond the control room start flickering on, showing a large warehouse space beyond them. Around them, the robobrain spring back to life, and the clicking and clacking of their metal claws against keys and buttons fills the space again. Nick bends over the terminal, navigating the screen and tapping keys as he goes. There are several more moments of relative quiet, and Piper returns to the center console and sinks down beside Deacon. She doesn’t talk but presses the length of her arm against his as they process what just happened, and what _almost_ happened.

Then the female voice of the mainframe speaks. “Security level Beta achieved. Omega Lockdown cancelled.”

Piper exhales a noise of a relief and Nick trots down the few stairs and crouches next to Deacon, giving him thorough once over. 

“Can you walk?” he asks.

Deacon shrugs. He honestly has no idea but holds out a hand for Nick to take to help him up. 

“Suppose there’s a someplace to crash around here?” Piper asks, standing as well.

“Gotta be a break room somewhere,” Nick replies and throws Deacon’s arm around his shoulder. Deacon’s legs are wobbly under him, but they don’t feel like they’ll collapse immediately. Hopefully, they don’t have to walk far. 

Piper looks back at the silent and still robobrain leaking fluid all over the floor of the control room. “Uh, howa ‘bout we try that other door and not walk past that thing?”

Nick nods in agreement, but Deacon shakes his head. He remembers the placards from the hall, no breakroom down there, just storage and office space. If they want to find some approximation of a place to sleep, they’ll have to venture further into the base. 

“Nothing there,” Deacon says, words coming easier, but not for anything longer than a two or three at a time. Nick looks at him and sighs. 

“Grab the keycard, Piper. We’ll probably need it as much as your eyes,” he says.

For a moment, it looks like she’s going to baulk, but she gives a tight nod and the swipes the card from the reader. They then start moving out of the control room, trekking down a couple stairs into the room’s slight pit and up the other side to get around the destroyed robobrain. Hydraulic fluid and nutrient gel mixing on the floor and dripping down the stairs as they climb to the bowed, and nearly caved in, door. 

A section of the mesh hall outside the control center detaches as they near and lowers to the ground, letting them walk down the new ramp to the warehouse floor. After glancing around the room, Nick spots another door at the far end where the light doesn’t reach as well and leads them to it. It turns out to be another set of vault-like doors with a retinal scanner. 

“Time to see if your biometrics took, Dr. Ciroletti,” Nick says to Piper with a slight smile. 

Piper shoots him an annoyed look, but steps up to the scanner and holds as still as she can, cradling her injured arm and looking utterly wrung out. After what feels like an eternity, but can’t have been more than 20 seconds, the scanner beeps in confirmation and the vault doors open. The placard on the wall next to the door reads: Research Wing.

They walk through a wide, twisting concrete hallway, with various bits of rotting wood crates and robot parts strewn in its corners, then it opens into a large room with a steel cage on the right and a large, arm-like device suspended above them with several unused brains floating in large jars. Deacon would like to stay longer to figure out what this thing is for, but he realizes that this isn’t the time and he’s hardly up for poking around this place right now. At the far end are a pair of security doors with a keycard swipe and Piper opens them with the doctor’s ID.

They move into a massive chamber with dozens of the same type of jars as the previous room and construction-like equipment frozen in the middle of their duties because the robobrains powering them have gone dark. They walk slowly, wary of setting off any more security measures despite reassurances from the sentry bot and the mainframe that things were hunky dory again, and eventually the construction equipment gives way to strange narrow doors stacked high in a concrete cabinet.They pause, wondering this place is, noting the dozens of similar cabinets lined in neat rows. Then, Deacon spots the placard on a nearby column. 

Incinerator.

It’s a morgue he realizes with horror. Then, the practical part of Deacon’s brain, which is slowly coming back online, makes the observations of _‘Well, where did you think they got all those brains? And once they had them, they hardly need the body, now did they?’_ It does not make him feel any better about the place, though.

“Oh God,” Piper says with utter abhorrence. “What hell kind of place is this?”

“Robobrain factory,” Deacon replies, voice flat. Those two words should encompass all that needs to be said about the kind of things that must have been done to achieve that kind of robot. He’s not so excited about this place anymore.

“I can’t believe…why would anyone- Jesus, we need to get out of here. Where’s the exit?” Piper says, her voice rising on every sentence, looking frantically around for the door that’ll lead them out.

“There’re tracks on the floor,” Nick says, pointing them out, and they follow them, figuring they’ll lead somewhere useful. 

The tracks lead them to a short hallway that opens into another large room, but nothing like the massive chamber from before. They follow the tracks until they take a sharp corner and group pauses. This room isn’t very well lit, most of the lights dark, but there’s enough light to see that the room is round, with windows at even spaces along the walls, and clear divisions between the rooms beyond them. 

The vague scent of rot and preserving agents lingers in the air, and the massive overhead lights seem to indicate that the circular area of this room was once an operating theater of some sort.

The track they followed heads off to a pair of rooms of to the left and splits between the two. Ahead of them is another track that veers off to the other rooms and to a place beyond this one. Deacon looks around, glancing in the various windows, as they move forward, trying to decide where to go from here. There are signs jutting out from the various rooms around the edge of the operating theater, but they’re dark and he can’t read what they say. 

The wall that had buffed them as they walked into the room, gives way in the operating theater, and as they turn, taking the space, Deacon notes that moves away at a weird angle. He points to the area, drawing Nick’s gaze because it’s shadowed and Deacon can’t tell if there’s anything there worth looking at. 

“There’s a door,” Nick says after a moment, and they walk toward it, cautiously optimistic that what’s behind it is what they’ve been looking for and not another office space. 

They find an old break room behind the door, the weak light of the operating theater filtering and illuminating a couple of couches and a table pressed against the far wall behind, and they all breathe a sigh of relief. As they walk in, a sensor catches their movement and the lights flicker on. They’re the best lights they come across in the entire facility probably because there hasn’t been movement in this room for two hundred years. The fridge in the corner still runs and there are a couple small appliances on a short counter. The fridge’s contents long moulded and dried out, but there are a couple sealed bottles of Nuka Cola and Piper holds them up in victory. 

They set themselves up on the couches, Piper cracks the bottles of Nuka Cola, handing one to Deacon and they take a swig of the sweet, flat stuff. Then Piper spends the next little while asking open-ended questions hoping to get a better idea of who Deacon is, The Railroad's goals, and why he's come to this place in search of materials. Deacon guesses it more of a distraction from this place than it is Piper’s curiosity, but the scales will probably tip more in its favour once she’s sufficiently distracted.

Deacon answers some of her questions as best as his addled brain can, dodges most of them, and outright lies about others. Nick usually makes a noise of disbelief when he lies so Piper watches Nick for clues about how and where to push. It's pretty effective, but even if he's called out on a lie, he doesn't have to answer truthfully. That said, they should conduct interrogations together. 

After an hour or so, Piper decides to call it a night and readies as best she can for bed. A couch is a helluva lot better than the hard ground, but it's not going to lend itself to particularly restful night. Piper takes the shorter couch, leaving the longer one for Deacon's lanky frame, but even then, he has to hang his feet over the armrest to fit right. 

Nick grabs a section of floor in front of Deacon's couch after checking the lights to make sure they have a manual switch so they aren't blinded in the middle of the night when one of them moves and the lights flick on and hands his coat to Piper for warmth. The underground bunker is cool, and now that they’ve stopped fighting for their lives, it seems doubly so. 

Nick pulled a stack of research files from the massive cabinet they noted out in the circular room while Piper finished making notes as reading material for the night. Deacon knows he's wary of this place and determined that they don't end up in more trouble than they can handle. That means researching the kind of research that this place was conducting. In the dark of the room, Deacon can see the yellow glow of Nick's eyes as the light bounces off his shoulders and the brim of his hat, marking him out in the gloom as a faint outline. 

Deacon focuses on the ceiling he can't make out and tries to sleep. For a while, he counts Piper's even breathing in an attempt to lull himself to sleep, but thoughts keep interrupting his count (now that the mesmetron’s brain scrambling effect has dissipated, they’ve all come rushing back like a dam bursting). Like how much more of the facility is he going to get to see tomorrow, or how much can he haul back to Ticon? When is he going to be able to make another trip here? Should he talk to Jolene about it? 

Which then leads him to feel like an idiot for all the arguing he and Jolene did over JH. God, he was such a condescending prick when they had that argument. She didn't know JH like he did? The guy who had practically zero interactions with him after he plugged that holotape in? Honestly, what the hell is wrong with him? He must apologize to her first chance he gets.

Which then leads to feeling like a jackass for his treatment of JH. Why does every conversation about his past have to lead to an argument? Is it not possible to just smile and say 'not talking about it' instead of instantly getting angry and having what essentially amounts to a temper tantrum anytime someone questions him about his choices? 

He tries to distract himself from that line of thought by listening to Nick's coolant pump tick steadily and the comforting way it reminds him of his vault, but that inevitably leads to thinking about Harkness and just what the fuck he's going to do with that situation. Maybe he should just make sure that Harkness gets the medical aid he needs and then let him disappear into the Wastes. But if he wants to stay and join The Railroad? Then what? Take him to Augusta and show him around? Ha! If Deacon thinks The Railroad doesn't trust him now, just imagine the shit coming his way if he did that. 

Deacon doubts there's enough fast talking in the world to get him out of that shitstorm.

All these thoughts ping around in his brain, one after another, in a constant loop that prevents him from falling asleep. He hasn't had this hard a time trying to settle in a while and he eventually decides that the best thing for is to just find some piece of machinery to pull apart to appease his restlessness. Because if he isn't going to sleep, he might as well not sleep and do something productive at the same time. 

Deacon sits up, swinging his feet to the floor and stands. Nick turns slightly to look up at him.

“Somethin' wrong?” he asks, voice low.

“Can't sleep,” Deacon replies and feels around for his screwdriver in his tool belt before grabbing his bag from the floor.

Then, he slowly picks his way back to the door, one hand out in front searching for anything that might trip him up. After a moment, Nick joins him and leads him out of the break room and back out into the circular operating theater. Deacon heads to the room directly across from the breakroom’s door hoping to find a working terminal that has useless data so he can pull out its memory module for Piper's terminal. Maybe he'll get lucky and it'll have two for him to take.

Nick follows him and Deacon pauses in front of the massive filing cabinet, glancing into the rooms on either side to see if there were any decent possibilities. Then, he shrugs and tries the room on the right, stopping short when he catches sight of an operating table with far too many sharp saw blades and laser cutters illuminated by a single x-ray light panel. He’s about to leave and find somewhere else when Nick points to a raised platform to their left that has a pair of desks back to back with terminals on them. 

They climb the short staircase and Deacon starts booting both terminals to check their data.

“Not exactly what you thought it would be, huh?” Nick asks as he settles himself on the railing near the stairs.

“I’m forever disappointed in the Old World, but it’s nothin’ new,” Deacon replies as he grabs a chair to sit in. He can feel Nick's gaze on him, analyzing Deacon's choice of words.

“What's wrong?” Nick questions after a moment of silence.

“Like aside from the grim nature of this place and the fact that we nearly died not two hours ago?” Deacon looks up from the terminal screen, the booting sequence is casting flickers of green across his skin in the low light of the room. “I just thought that RobCo was better than this. As if I needed to add anything else to the ‘shit I’ve misjudged’ list; it grows longer by the second.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Sure. Mistakes like forgetting to pack enough ammo and stumbling in a feral nest, or pissing off a merchant with a flippant remark and now they won’t sell to you, or eating some questionable food because your starving and then immediately regretting that decision when it all comes back up, but its one thing to make a mistake that fucks up your life. It’s quite another to make a mistake that fucks up the lives of the people around you.”

Nick snorts. “As if this is the first time a robot’s tried to kill me. Or even Piper. Here of our own free will, kid.”

Deacon looks back the screen. It’s asking for a password. Ugh. He thought he might be done with hacking into computers for the day. “Yeah,” he agrees without much conviction and focuses on typing commands. 

Nick lets him brood in silence for a time, while Deacon makes short work of the low-level security on the terminal. Then, “Spill it. What’s really bothering you?”

“Chatty detectives,” Deacon quips and Nick raises a single eyebrow that clearly says _'Aren’t you just friggin’ hilarious.'_ Deacon sighs, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. “What isn't bothering me?” he says with such wrung out emotion that Deacon surprises himself with the honesty.

Nick is quiet, moving only to pull his pack of cigarettes out. Then, he crushes the pack in slight annoyance when he remembers there aren't any cigarettes left. Deacon checks the drawers of the desk he's at and finds a half pack. He tosses it and Nick snatches it out of the air. 

“Thanks,” Nick says as he lights one and then silence reigns again. 

He's clearly waiting for Deacon to speak, to elaborate, and maybe it isn't such a bad idea to talk about a few things. He had a rather nasty wake-up call from Amari about his bad habit of making decisions in a vacuum because look where that’s gotten him. Thing is, it's hard to talk about the things bother him and let someone else poke through the wreckage to get advice on what to do since someone else gets to see all the mistakes you’ve managed to make.

“This place is exactly what I always wanted,” Deacon starts. “Underground, full of tech, away from people. It only seems right that I find it now, when I can't have it.” 

“Why not? No one left around to lay a claim on it. Finders keepers. You could turn it to a better purpose.”

“Not sure you can fix a place like this, but it's not that. I have a prior...engagement. One I can't break.”

“With who? The Railroad? Kid, you can leave ‘em when you want. You don't owe them anythin'.”

“Maybe not, but it's not about me.” Then, Deacon laughs slightly because lately it's been all about him. He says that it's for others, but is it? Is this? He doesn't know anymore. “I have no idea what the hell I'm talkin' about anymore, Nick. I can't tell up from down, right from wrong.”

“Well?” Nick asks holding out his hands as if to say _'What do you think I'm here for?’_

Deacon stares at the terminal screen, unable to make his brain make sense of the entries displayed. They might as well be in Greek for all he can understand them at this moment. 

“This is hard for me to talk about,” he says after a while of silence.

“Never woulda guessed.”

“Ha, ha. Suppose I deserved that.” Deacon sighs and considers where to begin. A fragment of a song bubbles up, _Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start..._ “What do you know about vault dwellers?”

“The ones from Vault 81?”

“No. Like the ones that arrive out of nowhere, cause massive upheaval, and then settle down to normal lives. Like the two out on the west coast.”

“And you.”

Deacon gives Nick a look. “Uh… what?”

“Come on, kid. It’s not that hard to piece together. I know you grew up in a vault and you used to go by the name ‘Lone Wanderer’. I’m not as big on caravan gossip as you, so it took me longer to put together than it probably should have, but even here there’re people who’ve heard of you.”

Deacon frowns slightly but decides to ignore that entire statement because if he acknowledges it, then he has to talk about it, and that is so _not_ happening. “There’s a vault dweller in Vault 111 in cryostasis. The only one left and I figure she’ll be a fit to be tied when she gets out -I know I would.”

For the moment, Nick lets him ignore his previous statement. “Why’s that?”

“Pretty sure someone murdered her husband and kidnapped her kid. Don’t ask me why, ‘cause I have no idea, but that’s a kinda rage that doesn’t dampen easy.”

“Yeah…” Nick agrees and looks at the room’s far wall for a moment. “So, what do you expect this…sole survivor to do?”

_That nickname is gonna stick, isn’t it?_ Deacon thinks with an internal eye roll.

“I’m gonna point her at The Institute. Or try to, anyway.”

“How do you know they had anythin’ to do with it?”

Deacon shrugs. “Don’t, but can you think of anyone else that might want to kill an entire vault of people in cryostasis and kidnap a kid?”

Nick makes a face like he doesn’t agree with Deacon’s supposition, not without evidence, but he can’t come up with a better suspect so he doesn’t say anything in disagreement. Instead, he says, “Why haven’t you defrosted her?”

“Can’t. Commands for that have been rerouted to somewhere offsite and I can’t even look at them without high-level Vault-Tec or military clearance.” 

“You hacked into a secret robotics compound and then into a top secret military mainframe but you can’t get into the controls for what is, essentially, a freezer?” Disbelief is written all over Nick’s face.

“It’s slightly more complicated than that. Here I made use of a known flaw in the security of retinal scanners, and then I had the keycard for a clearance level 98 personnel to help me into the mainframe and you finished the hack. It would’ve taken days otherwise, and even then, there would have been no guarantee.” Deacon sighs and rubs a hand across the stubble on his face. “Yeah, maybe I could batter my way into the system that controls the cryostasis and push up the countdown for her release, but that could kill her since I’d probably have to bypass every safety protocol in place to ensure that she thaws alive just to force the system to unlock her pod.”

“Okay. I get it. No go.” Nick blows out a curl of smoke. “What’s this about a countdown.”

“She’s set to be released in October of 2287. No idea why. It doesn’t make sense with the Vault-Tec experiment that was running.” 

“So, whoever rerouted the control picked that date specifically for to be released?”

“Seems so.”

They fall into silence. Nick is staring at the end of his cigarette, thinking. Deacon goes back to the terminal in front of him and has marginally better success and reading the information stored on it. There doesn’t seem to be anything worth noting, most entries are corrupted and the ones that aren’t, are little more than disgusting entries about the staff in this lab tricking someone into eating a brain and them drinking the nutritional gel with vodka.

“I’m not sure I understand why you need this woman, kid,” Nick says, interrupting Deacon reading a disturbing entry about the writer being annoyed by the sheer number of patients being cut open for their brains and how it was screwing up their equipment.

“She’s a vault dweller,” he answers distractedly.

“You’re a vault dweller.”

Deacon frowns slightly as he looks up from the terminal’s screen. “She’s a _native_ vault dweller,” he clarifies.

“How is she better equipped than you to fight The Institute? You’re the Railroad agent, you’re the one that’s fought its Coursers and helped rescue its synths, you’re the experienced Waster, you’re the one with the knowledge to hack into military bases. Kid…” Nick stares at him like he can’t quite figure out Deacon’s reasoning. “Look, I’m all for takin’ down The Institute, but pointin’ some grief-filled, wife and mother at them and hopin’ she’ll burn them down in the fire of her rage is…” Nick searches for a word to convey his distaste. 

“Manipulative?” Deacon suggests, a bitter tone to his voice. “Cold? Cowardly? Asshole-y in the extreme? Yeah. I know. I’m all of those things in spades.”

“No, kid, you’re not. Which is why I don’t get this.”

It’s not in the least bit surprising Nick thinks like this. It’s exactly what Deacon suspected he’d think when they first met and Deacon realized that there wasn’t that much of a difference between Nick and the Wanderer. It’s pretty much the whole reason why he avoided talking about himself for so long. It also, annoyingly, echoes the things JH said to him, but while he may have to do something about an eventual Brotherhood arrival, The Institute has to be somebody else’s problem. 

“I can’t be responsible for another Wasteland. I refuse to be,” Deacon replies, voice tight. The acknowledgement of Nick’s previous assertion that he was The Lone Wanderer is hard to say aloud, even in this round about way. He’s not going to get angry about it, though; he’s going to be an adult about his choices and not dissolve into a screaming two-year-old. Not again.

“Aren’t we all partly responsible for the Wasteland we live in?” Nick flicks the ash off his cigarette with an annoyed gesture. “Hell, it’s not like you have to lead a rebellion or anything but to ignore the fact that you have more experience at this that frozen Vaultie is idiotic. And you and I both know you’re anything but.”

“If you have learned anything about me, Nick, you should know that I don’t do half-ways. It’s either do nothing or do everything. There is no middle ground. That’s not the kind of person I am.” 

“And I also know that you aren’t capable of doin’ ‘nothing’. You joined The Railroad, didn’t you? That’s a fight against The Institute if I ever saw one.”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, but The Railroad’ll never be able to make any kind of real difference against The Institute as they are, so I am, in essence, doing nothing. Large scheme we’re talkin’ here, of course,” he adds when it looks like Nick might say something to the effect of ‘The Railroad does make a difference to the synths it rescues’, which is true, but not the point.

Nick makes a noise of frustration. “So, what’re we doin’ here? What’ve we been doin’ by collecting radio dishes and lookin’ for tech so you can build an amplifier? Because all this doesn’t look like your doin’ nothin’, kid. You do realize that your actions are contradictin’ your words, right?”

Deacon abruptly stands, chair rolling backwards until it hits the railing behind him “I know, okay?” he snaps. “I get it. I’m a hypocrite. What do you want me to say? That I’m terrified of making the same mistakes again? That the Capital haunts me like a bad dream that I’m unable to escape even in wakefulness?” He looks away from Nick, anger and despair choking his voice in equal measure. “Why do you think I want a place like this, hmm? It’s so that I can do nothin’ have and enough distractions to last me a lifetime. Otherwise, I’ll do to this place what I did in the Capital.”

There’s a moment of silence, then, “Kid, how old are you? You just had a birthday, right?”

“What?” Deacon asks, thrown by the odd change in conversation. He shoots a look at Nick, who takes a drag from his cigarette and waits. “In July. 27 in July.”

“And how old were you when you left your vault?”

Deacon gives a harsh laugh. “I didn’t _leave_ my vault, Nick. I was forced out when my dad left because there was no guarantee that I’d survive the chaos that the simple action of opening the vault door brought upon us. Amata was scared that I’d end up like Jonas, so…” he trails off with a sharp flick of his hand. He doesn’t want to go back there.

“You didn’t leave on the best of terms, I remember,” Nick says. “How old?”

“…I was 19.”

Nick sighs; it’s full of emotion. “Kid-”

“Don’t,” Deacon interrupts. He will absolutely _not_ tolerate any sort of pity on this from Nick.

Nick crushes his cigarette out under foot before moving from his perch against the railing and crossing to Deacon, leaving a bit of distance between them when Deacon backs up slightly.

“You’re too hard on yourself. You were _19-_ ”

“Despite your nickname for me, Nick, I was not and am not a child,” Deacon bites out.

Nick ignores his interruption. “You were 19. You grew up sheltered and safe in a vault, a privilege as much a curse these days. And if you honestly had the responsibility of an entire Wasteland on your shoulders, then I gotta question what _the fuck_ were they thinkin’.”

Deacon looks at Nick in shock. “-What?”

“Who the hell told you that you were responsible for that? Where did you ever get an idea like that?” Nick shakes his head. “Are we each individually responsible for a piece of the place we call home? For helpin’ others and refusin’ to ignore the bad with a dismissive ‘Not my problem’? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean we’re solely responsible for every bit of good or bad that happens in that place. How would we ever stay sane?

“And maybe those small acts of good snowball into a larger cause, but in that you’re never alone. At least you shouldn’t be. You think The Railroad started out as a large organization of people spread over the ‘Wealth? I guarantee it started with one person’s act of kindness. _One._ One person who stumbled upon a synth lost and alone and did the decent thing, the _human_ thing and took them in.”

Deacon stares at Nick unable to speak. There are too many thoughts and emotions tumbling around inside of his head for any of it to coalesce into words. 

“Ya know what I think?” Nick asks, stepping closer. “I think ya did just that. I think you stumbled upon situation after situation and offered your help every time it was needed because you aren’t the kinda person to turn a blind eye. And I think it snowballed, but somewhere along the way you got put on this pedestal and treated as if you knew how to solve everyone’s problems.” Nick moves closer still until he’s standing a scant foot away from him. “And because you had done so well up to that point, you thought so too and took away their culpability in helpin’ themselves.”

Deacon swallows thickly. 

Oddly, some part of him wants to defend the Brotherhood's actions back then and say that it wasn't their fault for giving him that responsibility, that he took it from them because they were more concerned about the DC ruins than they were the whole of the Capital, because someone had to do it and there was no one else around stepping up. He'll freely concede that he took to much power away from others under the guise of 'doing what was right', and most people freely gave him that power, but he's not sure that he can put that on someone else as 'placing him on a pedestal'. It doesn't feel right to give up all responsibility. He _is_ responsible.

“Maybe some of what you're sayin' is right,” Deacon begins, voice unsteady, “and if it is, then, all the more reason not to get involved here. History has this funny cyclical effect and I'm not eager to play it out again.”

“No,” Nick says, sharply. Annoyed. “It’s all the more reason not to do it the same way again. Jesus, kid, haven't your heard about learnin' from your mistakes?”

Deacon frowns, anger starting to build again. He tamps it down. “Why do you think I'm avoidin' the whole situation? I've learned not to get involved.”

“That's not learnin', that's hidin', ignorin', refusin' to do better because you think it's better to do nothin' and let bad things happen than it is to do somethin' and cause bad things happen.”

“Isn't it?” Deacon snaps, mouth settling into a grim line. “Every time I get involved bad things, consequences, _shit_ happens, Nick. At least when those things happen and I wasn't involved it's not _my fault._ ”

Nick scowls at him, advancing so Deacon has to step back or risk a collision. “You are so full of shit, Jack.” 

“Stop calling me that!” Deacon fairly shouts, anger bubbling up. 

“Or what?-” Nick plants a hand on Deacon's chest, shoving him so the back of his thighs catch the edge of the railing and Deacon stumbles, nearly flipping over and landing on the floor. He manages to catch himself awkwardly on the railing and Nick watches him struggle with equal anger on his face. “-You might actually realize that the Wasteland doesn't revolve around you? That things happen outside of your control and without your permission? That whatever bad happened in your life to lead you here wasn't somethin' you coulda changed?

“You aren't the only one who laments the life that was, and you don't get a monopoly on feelin' shitty about all the things you don't have anymore. But you do have something that's rare these days, Jack: the capability _and_ desire to help.” Nick grasps his arms and pulls him straight on the railing. “It's why you don't live in a place like this because whatever lies you tell yourself about not gettin' involved, you are and always have been.”

Nick's words are bouncing around in his head like rubber balls, striking things that easily rebuff them and others that crack and shatter under the onslaught. He was a mixed bag of emotions coming into this place and now he's a certifiable hot mess. 

Deacon would like to put some distance between the two of them, but Nick still has a hold of his arms, just below the line of sleeves of his t-shirt so he can feel the metal of Nick's one hand warm slowly against his skin -Nick can probably feel his heart racing over his near spill. Distance means he could pull himself together a bit and not feel so raw and exposed.

“What do you want me to say?” Deacon croaks. He honestly unsure.

Nick shrugs. “But I'll tell ya what I want to stop sayin'. Stop sayin' you're an asshole or a manipulative because it's not true and an excuse for not tryin' harder.” 

A moment ago, he was mad, now he's feeling...well, like an asshole. He's not sure he can strike that word from his vocabulary, but maybe Nick's right. Maybe it's a convenient crutch. It'd be a lot easier to consider these things if Nick wasn't holding his gaze with unblinking precision. And it'd be a lot easier to ignore his gaze if the lights weren't so dim in this part of the room, letting Nick's eyes shine so brightly.

“I'll…try,” Deacon says after a moment. Nick nods in acceptance of that, dropping his hands and stepping back. 

Losing the pressure of Nick's hands seems suddenly wrong, even though in all the moments before this one he wanted nothing more than space from Nick, and Deacon’s hand shoots out to grab Nick's tie (it isn't visible in the gloom, but Deacon knows this is the blue one with the shimmery thread that catches the sun like a thousand pinpoint lights. Becky probably made him buy it since no one else would’ve -she desperately wants Diamond City to have even the smallest hint of fashion) to stop him from stepping away. 

“Kid?” Nick questions, voice low and somewhat surprised. He doesn't understand Deacon's mood shifts anymore than Deacon does himself. What does he even want? Deacon has no idea anymore. It was clear once, and now it’s as muddled as irradiated sludge. 

Deacon opens his mouth to say something along the lines of ‘can you please touch me again, even if it’s only to shove me completely off the railing’ (he can’t ask for something serious without adding a joke to make it seem less desperate than it truly is) but the words stick in his throat. Nick tilts his head slightly in question, and the lights from the outer room glint softly on the exposed metal of his face. Suddenly, Deacon has the same urge as the one he had in that alcove in Diamond City, to touch his face.  
Deacon lifts his other hand, hesitantly and asks, “Can I...?” as he moves to hover next to the ruined part of Nick's face. 

Nick's whole continence changes, going from confident to unsure in a blink of an eye and Deacon swears that even his eyes dim somewhat, but he nods in acceptance of the request. 

The edges are ragged and Deacon follows them along the edge of Nick's cheek artificial cheekbone, fingers catching slightly on the clipped edges of sensory mesh that no longer functions. It's gold and copper weave something that occasionally catches the light. He gently moves further up, tracing the path of the wear past Nick's occipital bone, wondering what started this mess because Deacon can feel bits of the synthetic skin flaking off on his fingers; being exposed to the harsh elements of the Commonwealth is deteriorating his skin. It can't have been this large, to begin with. 

Nick has stopped breathing. The rise and fall of his chest is something that Deacon can no longer feel against his knuckles. He stops moving, meaning to pull back because he's clearly agitating Nick. Then, a hand settles on his thigh.

“It's okay,” Nick murmurs, reading his expression and stepping close. “I just...no one's ever-” he takes a deep breath, pushing against Deacon's knuckles. “It's okay.”

“Okay.” 

Deacon starts again, dipping into touch the steel hinge of Nick's jaw and Nick goes very still. “Can you feel that?” he asks, slight wonderment in his voice as he pulls his hand back.

“You're disrupting the fine electrical flow that hums through my frame, so I can tell that you’re touchin' it, but it's not the same.”

“I wasn't shocked.”

“It's not that strong.” Nick flashes him a grin. “Otherwise, you'da got it good when you fixed my arm.” 

Deacon smiles somewhat in return thinking of that day. It falls again as he recalls all of it.

“You still wanna burn it all?” Nick asks, clearly thinking the same thing.

Deacon shakes his head. Too late to do it now anyways, but oddly, he doesn't actually want to either.

“Good.” 

Nick leans in, bringing his good hand up to cup Deacon's jaw and asks with a raised eyebrow and a smile, “Can I?”

“Yeah…” Deacon replies, already short of breath and feeling a tightness in his chest that he can't explain.

Nick kisses him slowly, savouring the press and release of it; kissing him like he wants to pull all the hidden parts of Jack to the surface and drown Deacon out, and he's lost to it. There's a rushing in his head and the tightness seems to expand until he's out of breath, even though he is pulling in oxygen every time Nick's lips leave his own to observe the way Deacon's capillaries fill with blood, or the minute dilation of his eyes, or any number of things happening to him in this moment that only Nick's eyes can see.

He needs to move, any part of himself, because maybe that'll ease the tightness in his chest. Maybe that will help him find air again. Deacon's hand moves from Nick's tie, to slide around Nick's neck, only to catch on the ragged reminders that not so long ago Ash tried to claw Nick apart with her gauntlet. He pulls back and watches Nick's face as his fingers slide along the edges of the claw marks, catching on the sharp edges of destroyed sensory mesh. Deacon feels anger and then _anguish_ well up within him at the thought of losing Nick.

“She almost killed you,” he whispers. Damn Ash and damn the Deathclaws.

The corners of Nick's mouth quirk upward. “But, you had my back.” 

It hits Deacon then and the shock of it releases that tight feeling around his chest so he can suck in a breath of air.

He loves Nick. 

_He's in love with Nick Valentine._

Deacon lets those words rattle around in his brain for a moment, and finds that they aren't that foreign. No. He's known it for a long time now. He'd just never let himself admit it.

Nick's thumb rasps along the stubble on his cheek, bringing him back. Nick arcs an eyebrow in question.

“I love you,” Deacon blurts, the words tripping over themselves to be said, even as Nick goes still, “Maybe more than I've loved anyone before and there's this tightness right here-” he taps his breastbone “-that aches at the thought of losing you. And I promised myself I wouldn't do this again because it hurts so much to lose someone you love,” his voice breaks, “but you've just calmly hopped over every fucking wall I ever had to protect myself from exactly this and now I don't know what I'd do without you.”

Deacon touches the ragged area of Nick's face again but drops it when no answer seems to be forthcoming and looks down. 

“ _Jack,_ ” Nick breathes and in this moment he doesn't mind so much hearing it again. 

Deacon looks up. Emotions flit across Nick's face as he leans in again to catch Deacon's mouth again, softly. Moving the way they maybe should have kissed that first time, and Deacon feels something ease in him. For a moment, he thought... 

“I've loved you longer than I care to admit,” Nick says, lips brushing against Deacon's as he speaks. 

Deacon smiles. “That's an admission in of itself.”

“Kid, if you didn't already know I was crazy about you, then you aren't as perceptive as you think.” 

“Well, I knew you were crazy, Nick. So, I got fifty percent of it right. That's not bad.”

Nick pulls back slightly and gives Deacon a look. “Things changed so much that fifty percent is a good thing? Hell, that's barely a passin' mark.”

“And considerin' I was an A student, I've fallen far. My most humblest of apologies,” Deacon replies and leans forward to kiss Nick again. 

It doesn’t take long for kisses to turn heated and hungry, but they quickly decide that it’s probably best not to get all ‘XXX’ in this place. Rolling around in a pile of robot parts like Scrooge McDuck jumping into a pile of coins may be on Deacon’s bucket list, but rolling around on any surface in this place without proper clothing is just asking for trouble. Deacon would like to grumble and say he has standards and all, but his previous track record for sex partners doesn’t really support that and boy does his spark leave quickly after that.

Nick, the perceptive bastard that he is, senses his mood change as they quietly head back across the operating theater to the breakroom, and before Deacon can get to the door, Nick presses him to the wall next to it. “Stop that,” he says.

“What? Thinkin’?” Deacon asks with a smirk he doesn’t feel in the slightest.

“No. I love your thought process, kid-” Deacon’s heart flutters wildly at that, hearing it again, and he wonders if Nick can see his pulse jumping in his neck- “Stop thinkin’ poorly of yourself.”

Deacon frowns in slight frustration, heart refusing to calm -why does Nick read him so well? “How do you even…?”

“You make a particular sigh when you’re beatin’ yourself up. Cut it out.”

“Well, that’s easier said than done,” Deacon grumbles.

“I know, but you seem to relish difficult things, kid.”

“Must be why I love you, then. Can’t imagine another reason.” Saying the words have a similar effect as hearing them, and Deacon’s heart is racing anew. Nick smiles and leans down to press his lips against the column of Deacon’s neck, right where his pulse is thrumming and Deacon swallows. Nick moves up, following the jumping line of his artery until he crests the edge of Deacon’s face and kisses him again. 

There’s a lot of things wrong with his life, Deacon knows, but in this moment everything seems perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worked on the scene with Nick and Deacon being all soppy while watching _Dirk Gently_ on Netflix so it might be kinda sentimental ‘cause that show caused all kinds of _feelings._ Plus, it’s been like two years in the story of this dance, frankly, it’s about damn time, right? I mean I could’ve put it off longer, but I don’t know. I think it works here. *shrugs*
> 
> I figure that any computer system with access to satellites, like those in a military base, would be updated with new copywrites since I imagine House is like: “Just FYI world, I still own all this shit.” He’d be more eloquent, though, of course.
> 
> Also, I imagine that Becky is waging this silent war against the terrible Wastelander dress that permeates Diamond City and that she uses Nick has her warrior -totally without him realizing it. And slowly, over the years, she cajoles him into buying better and better clothing and then suits, because one day, _one day!_ Diamond City really will be the Great Jewel.  Oh god…I think I have another short story to add to my list. Why do I do this to myself?


	24. ‘Neath blue skies above, Massachusetts / With the one I love, Massachusetts / Just like Jack and Jill, Massachusetts…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,_   
>  _the seasons' difference; as, the icy fang_   
>  _and churlish chiding of the winter's wind,_   
>  _which, when it bites and blows upon my body,_   
>  _even ‘til I shrink with cold, I smile and say,_   
>  _'This is no flattery.'_
> 
> _-All's Well that Ends Well (2.1.5)_

Piper shifts slightly on the too small couch, careful of her arm and shoulder (not that she could merrily ignore them or anything because, despite the stim, they are aching like crazy), and blinks into the black of the break room. She doesn’t know what time it is, but her internal clock is telling her that no more sleep is going to be had and that she needs something to eat, _stat._

The even, steady breathing of Deacon tells her that he isn’t up yet, and she can’t see Nick’s eyes glowing in the dark so he’s taken a break from reading. Piper sighs quietly and sits up, feeling the burn and pull in her shoulder as she does so. Ugh. That laser got her good. She might consider getting another stim in Diamond City if she had the caps to pay for one, but she’ll just have to muddle through with painkillers and going easy for a while. She stands, grabbing Nick’s coat before it slides down onto the floor, and pulls it on to help keep the cool air at bay.

The layout of the room is only marginally remembered in her mind, so she treks carefully forward, hands out to try and prevent her from tripping over anything that might have been left in the way. There’s the tiniest sliver of light coming from under the door and Piper follows it like a beacon, pulling the door open a crack to let some more of the soft light pour into the room. 

It shines mostly on the couch she vacated and the kitchenette area of the break room, allowing her to shuffle back to bed and -oh, she stops short upon seeing Nick laying on the other couch, facing outwards so his body blocks in Deacon’s. Huh. She got the coat, and Deacon got the synth. Well, he got the better bargain, didn’t he? Nick radiates heat like pot belly stove. 

Nick gives her a small smile from where he’s laying, and Piper returns it with a rather imperious look, pulling his coat tighter around herself in a clear gesture of, _‘I’m keeping this until we see the sun again,’_ and digs up the rest of her rations as quietly as she can while Nick laughs lowly behind her. Then, Piper heads to the cupboards around the fridge to grab the coffee can noted yesterday. 

The taps make a horrible banging noise when she turns them on, and she frantically waves her hands in front of the spurring water as if that will somehow dampen the sound, hissing curses under her breath as the taps choke up centuries of scale deposits. There’s a rustling noise behind her and a muffled groan and she’s probably woken Deacon up with all this damn noise. 

Finally, after what seems ages, the air is worked out of the pipes and the water flow settles down, no longer making churning noises like some great behemoth is trapped in the piping. She lets it flow while she starts poking around for filters and checks the state of the coffee maker itself, hoping that it isn’t full of tiny, dead bugs. 

From what Piper can tell, the water is now running clean again and she cups a handful of it to bring up to her nose and smell. It doesn’t seem to have that tang of radiation to it, nor are her hands itching from just holding it. Both good things, but there’s a plug-in kettle next to the coffee maker and she’s going to boil the water just to be sure. Who knows what kind of bacteria have set up in this water system over the last 200-years?

She fills the kettle as full as she can, holding it up to the light to make sure she hasn’t gone over the line and then plugs it into the socket, flicking the switch and settling back against the counter to wait for it to do its thing. If it even has a thing to do anymore. There doesn’t seem to be a light on it to indicate that it's working so if she can’t hear the sound water starting to boil in about three minutes, she’ll have to call the whole thing a bust and leave without her caffeine fix. 

After a moment or so of watching Nick watch her, Piper moves across the room to where she stashed her things last night and pulls out her cigarettes and pocket watch. The pack is annoying light in her hands, but this place must be ripe with half-finished packs and the thought of not having to buy cigarettes on the down low from Percy for a while makes her smile in dark. Piper sits on the couch, legs crossed, and pulls Nick’s coat tight around her before she sparks a flame and lights her cigarette while checking the time -a little after 7 a.m.

“Do we like get to draw straws next time?” Piper asks after a moment, her voice low in respect of the morning hour, but loud enough that Deacon can’t ignore it in favour of sleep. “‘Cause I feel like I got the short end of the deal here. I got the patchy coat and you got the synth who doubles as a portable space heater.”

Nick starts laughing again, a low rumbling sound. Deacon’s head peers at her from over Nick’s shoulder, his blue eyes squinting in the low light. “He’s my synth,” Deacon says, voice scratchy with sleep, “and you’ll have to pry him from my cold, dead hands.” Then he snuggles back down, with the clear intent to ignore everything for the next few minutes. 

Piper throws Nick a surprised, questioning look, and the sheer softness of the smile she gets in return makes Piper cover her mouth because did they just…did they _finally?_ She has to bite down on a knuckle to keep from squealing in delight, and she looks at Nick with an expression of _‘Really? Honest, and for true?’_ When Nick nods, Piper does lose it. She drops her cigarette in the ashtray on the side table and dives off the couch to awkwardly hug them both, ignoring the burn in her shoulder, while making chittering noises of happiness. Because seriously, it’s about damn time. 

Deacon tries to bat her arms away without much success or real intention behind it, and Nick laughs some more, sounding so genuinely happy that Piper feels it’s entirely unfair for one person to gobble it all up like that, but also knowing that no one else deserves it so completely. She probably would have stayed there, kneeling on the dirty floor and hugging them, but the kettle whistles after a bit and she has to rise to look after it. 

She dumps the steaming water into the coffee reservoir and flicks the switch on the machine to get it started -Piper already set it up while waiting for the water to run clean, then she returns to her couch and picks up her smouldering cigarette. Her face is still stretched in a grin and this is just the _best thing ever._ As soon as she gets back to Diamond City she’s writing a big piece about it. Ha! Screw McDonough and the Institute. They think they can breed fear and hate in her city? Well, they’ve got another damn thing coming.

It doesn’t take long for the smell of coffee to permeate the space with its delicious aroma. She idly wonders what she’ll do when the pre-war coffee is finally all found and drunk, or if that’ll even be in her lifetime. Like, where does coffee come from? Do caravanners go there? It is something that’s still made where ever that place is? Piper shakes the thoughts from her head as the coffee maker sputters the last of the reservoir onto the grounds, and stands to grab a cup. 

As she sips from the warm mug, the hot coffee doing much more for the chill in her bones than Nick’s coat, Deacon peers back over Nick’s shoulder looking like he might want a cup or two as well. Of course, there isn’t any brahmin milk hanging around in this place, but she’s sure he’s had to do without before. God, how did she miss it all this time? _Railroad!_ That’s as big a discovery as the confirmation that McDonough’s an Institute stodge. 

Piper waggles her cup slightly. “Come and get some, lover boy,” she says and then laughs when Deacon makes a noise of annoyance and lets his head fall back against Nick’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s right, I will be teasing you about this relentlessly to appease my own, _slight,_ jealously that you two get to be so ridiculously happy.”

Nick gives her a look from across the room that seems to suggest that she could do something about her own happiness the moment they get back to Diamond City, but Piper ignores him. It’s much more fun to think about them than to think about _him,_ and try to navigate the minefield of emotions that is. Half of them she doesn’t even know what to do with aside from stare at forlornly and ask ‘What do you want from me?’.

Deacon makes a loud, exaggerated sigh, and then shifts to sit half up on the couch, while Nick moves to allow him space to gather his limbs and stand. His t-shirt crumples oddly around his torso and his hair is a tangled mess that falls forward as he pulls his boots back on. Piper doubts she looks any better, but there’s something endearing about seeing him without all his various walls and snarky remarks up and ready to deflect any sort of personal expedition anyone might make to get to know him better. 

Piper didn’t ever think she saw the ‘whole’ Rhett, but she wonders now how deep the well is. She knows that ‘Deacon’ is just another pseudonym in what must a list of them, so how many more facets of his personality are doled out under the guise of another name. She wonders how much of the picture Nick sees. 

Deacon grabs a mug from the cupboard beside her head, staring at the inside of it and then wiping its mouth on his t-shirt. Thankfully, they were stored upside down. He pours a cup as Nick moves off the couch to turn the real lights on and the two of them shield their eyes against the bright fluorescence. 

“You sure you wanna go there?” Deacon asks, sipping his coffee and quirking an eyebrow at her. It takes a moment for Piper’s mind to rewind far enough to remember what that comment is in response to. 

“And waste this perfect opportunity to make you blush on a regular basis? Uh, yeah. I totally want to go there.”

“Okay,” he replies, all fake innocence and she thinks she might have stepped into the deep end without realizing it. 

They eat what’s left of their rations, drink a few more cups of coffee, before cleaning up as best they can and heading out. Deacon scrounged some tools up from the surface, in the RobCo Service Center and uses them to attack a computer in one of the rooms off the operating theater. The whole place just gives her the creeps and she can’t stay in the same room as him where that horribly burnt and blood stained surgery table is with all its still gleaming instruments poised to slice open someone else if they only gave it the opportunity. 

Piper leaves Nick and Deacon to give each other lovey-dovey looks and wanders into another room, past the filing cabinets stacked high, deciding that now was a good a time as any to start looking for cigarette packs and holotapes (since Deacon said she should start collecting them), or even a few bottlecaps tossed carelessly in trash cans or desk drawers. 

She’s found three packs, six holotapes, and a dozen or so loose bottlecaps when Nick surprises her by sitting on the corner of the desk she’s poking through. Nick is ridiculously quiet for someone who weighs half again what a normal man does.

“Jesus,” Piper swears as his lighter flicks on to cast some better illumination for the drawer she’s rummaging through. (Why didn’t she think of that?) “Way to creep up on a girl there, Nick.”

“Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“Well, wear a friggin’ bell or something,” she mutters and shoves a few more interesting knick-knacks in her bag while Nick gives a huff of laughter. Then, she moves to the next drawer. “Thought you were watchin’ him work? Ya know, tradin’ coy looks and smiles? Wonderin’ how much you could get away with, with me just in the other room?”

Nick raises an unimpressed eyebrow at her and Piper isn’t phased in the least. “People who live in glass houses, shouldn’t throw stones,” he tells her.

And…okay, that has her attention because Nick does have a reputation for having wicked snark when the occasion calls for it. She probably won’t be amicable about remarks directed her way about Arturo, so yeah. Don’t throw stones. 

“Fine,” Piper replies, somewhat mulishly. “We have to live in the same city, after all, but that doesn’t except _him._ ”

Nick flashes her a grin. “Nor should it.”

She nods. As long as they’re understood on that point. “So…worried I’d fallen into a black hole or something?”

“Nope. Kid’s just talkin’ to a sorta-not-dead guy and I’m not needed to field the conversation so I decided to leave for greener pastures.”

“Sorta-not-dead? What?”

Nick holds up his hands as if to say _‘Do I look like I understand half the things he says?’_ and yeah, she sort of thought he did. Since, they were, ya know… “Robert House. Know ‘im?” he asks.

“If he’s dead, how could I?” Piper stops rummaging through the desk and gives Nick her full attention because what on earth had this conversation suddenly become? Nick flicks his lighter closed

“Kid says he’s not, but he used to run RobCo before the war, so I’m dubious as to his current state.”

“Okay….and why is Deacon talking to him?”

Nick shrugs. “He apparently talks to himself while workin’ all the time and Mr. House is currently the focus of his annoyance.”

Piper raises an eyebrow and replies with both sarcasm and seriousness, “Those pre-war assholes, amiright?”

Nick smirks and Piper goes back to rummaging in the drawers. 

“So, what’re we supposed to do in the meantime?” she asks after a minute or so of silence. 

Nick considers for a moment. Then, “Might wanna look for something to carry stuff in. I suspect once he gets goin’, he’s gonna wanna drag every bit of useful tech outta here.”

“Hey, I did not sign up to be Rh-Deacon’s pack mule, or get shot at by creepy robotic brains, or get trapped in an underground horror house.”

“And yet, here we are. To be fair, though, we aren’t trapped.”

“Yet,” Piper replies with a glower.

“Oh, yea of little faith,” Deacon says with all the smirky swagger she’s come to associate with Rhett and holds up a couple replacement memory modules. “You’re our way out, Piper; you’re the key, so as long as you don’t get lost…” He flashes a grin at her. “Now, I need to find some large computer consoles. If we keep goin’-” he gestures out the window toward the dark hall that leads out of the theater, “-we’ll probably come across somethin’ useful, _and_ get closer to the exit.”

Well, she couldn’t argue with that and the faster they made it back up to the surface, the better. Plus, computer consoles would invariably mean desks, and desks meant more useful things to stash in her pockets. Just as long as there weren’t any more robots. 

“Can’t make any promises,” Deacon replies, “but, hey, look on the bright side-” he wraps an arm around her shoulders and starts steering her toward the exit. Piper can feel herself relaxing by degrees (there’s something reassuring about the way Deacon speaks sometimes, like even though he might be making a joke, there’s always an underlying truth peering through that says, _‘I’ll be there, I’ll help, I’m not going to leave you stranded.’_ ), “-you’re coded into the system now, so they’ll only try and kill me and Nick.”

“Yeah…that’s not that reassuring at all.”

Deacon waves one hand in an easy dismissal. “Eh. Me and Nick killed a Courser. Trust me, even a sentry bot isn’t as scary as one of those things. I’m not worried.”

“Good to know one of us isn’t,” Nick replies, voice droll, but wearing a slight smirk that speaks loudly about his trust and affection for Deacon. Piper can’t help but smile in seeing it. 

Ellie was right. Someone around here needed to get their damn happy ending.

\- - - - - 

They find a large office like area, several floors up, with windows overlooking the robotic production line, far from the prison and morgue and incinerator. Here, one could almost forget that grim nature of this place. There’s plenty of desks for her to raid, unlocked terminals to read out of idle curiosity, and in the background, there’s Deacon muttering to himself and occasionally causing a loud bang when he rips a warped panel off a console and it flies from his grip, followed by swearing and an apology.

Sometimes she sits at a desk, meaning to rummage through it, and gets caught up in watching Deacon work. This isn’t the first time she’s ever been on a scaving expedition, but it’s different watching someone who’s just looking for intact goods to sell, compared to watching Deacon now. On the surface, it isn’t different, he’s checking for damage, burnt circuitry, quality, and usefulness the same as any decent scaver would (though his pile of parts looks less like a pile and more like a pre-war ad for parts), but it’s like Piper’s seeing a whole new person while Deacon works, like someone’s peeled back several layers of wallpaper and suddenly found beautifully jointed wood paneling underneath. 

She scared to look too long in case he realizes she’s watching and the exposed part is hidden again. Piper catches Nick’s eye and tilts her head toward Deacon, eyebrow raised in question. _‘Do you see this?_ it says. Nick nods. Is this what he sees all the time? Piper never realized how tense Deacon is, and by extension, Rhett was, until she sees his loose shoulders and relaxed frame now. He said that The Railroad was paranoid, and considering the things that The Institute does it’s no surprise, but she didn’t realize how paranoid that was until just now. All it takes for Deacon to relax is a sequestered underground bunker and half-a-dozen computer console to rip the guts out of. No big deal. Probably finds a dozen or so places like that before lunch. 

Piper snorts at that thought. How do they not go crazy?

“Hey, guys?” Deacon calls, looking over at where the two of them are hanging out. “You find any bags or totes? I’ve reached the limit with Ellie’s bag.”

Nick shoots her a smirk and Piper frowns -she’s not going to be anyone’s pack mule, and they start looking for something that might help Deacon. Piper finds a tote under one of the desks filled with various knickknacks from the woman to who owned it before the war, including some cigarettes and bubblegum that she stashes in her own bag. Then, she takes it over to Deacon, after dumping the contents out on the desk. 

“Here,” Piper says, handing him the tote. “Just don’t expect me to haul it back to Diamond City.”

“Howa ‘bout Bunker Hill?” He flashes her a grin.

“It’s not a negotiation, Deacon. I’m not carryin’ your salvage, and certainly not with this bum arm.”

He just waves her off. “It’d be good exercise,” he replies and starts filling the tote with various pieces of tech, ranging in sizes.

“Not happening.”

He shrugs at her from his spot on the floor, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her assertion, but she must have made some manner of impression because, in the end, it’s Nick who shoulders the bag as they head to the exit -wandering through room after room, trying to make sense of the layout in the semi-dark. Maybe he never meant to ask her to carry it and he was just yanking her chain when she made it known that she wouldn’t be carrying anything other than the two memory modules he’d scrounged for her terminal. 

The sunlight is shockingly bright after their time underground and the warmth of it very welcome. She won’t go as far to say that she never expected to see it again, but while in that robot factory horror show there was definitely way too much dirt and rock and concrete between her and the sun. Unfortunately, Piper doesn’t get much of a chance to savour it before they’re accosted by a pack of ferals just outside the service center’s doors. By the time, they’ve wiped them out, she’d sweaty and unbearably hot in Nick’s coat, shedding it in a few quick motions and handing it back to him. 

Piper pulls the brim of her cap low to shield her eyes against the sun, Deacon fishes out his sunglasses and shoves them on, and Nick slides back into his coat, looking decidedly out of place in it with the summer sun beating down on them. Then, they’re off; at a speed much less than that of the robots at the East City Downs races.

It’s sometime in the mid-afternoon when they reach Bunker Hill, and Piper sighs in relief when the monument towers above the ruins around them. She’s starving and thirsty, and about ready to take a break in the shade of the market and rest up before heading on. Inside the walls, the market is bustling as usual; caravanners are striking bargains with shop owners and customers alike, and people are browsing the stalls, haggling over prices as the dappled sunlight streams through the holes in the canvas roof. The sound of the wind in trees a backdrop to the bustle. There’s something charming about the Bunker Hill market in full swing and Piper has always appreciated the town’s scrappy nature.

They bypass the gate into the market, Piper letting her hand graze along the monument as they go by, and head around to the back where the bar is. Savoldi’s Place takes up an entire corner, built from scavenged wood and brick from the nearby area, the bar is squat with an upper level that has a few rooms to rent for a night or two. The heavy insulating doors are pulled back and away for the hot weather and a pair of saloon swing doors mark the entrance off the small porch. They follow the wood-slatted path to the doors and shove their way inside, making sure that the saloon-style doors swing satisfactorily in their wake -they’re probably the best feature of this place and if Vadim and Yefim had the space she’d insist that they build a pair for themselves. 

The bar is busy this time of day, being the only place in town that serves food save for a jerky stand just outside the market, and they’re hard pressed to find a free table. A few people eye Nick with distrust as they go by, but for the most part, their presence goes unnoticed. Deacon spots a couple people standing from their table and he swoops in to take their place before someone else gets the same idea and a moment later Tony Savoldi is giving their table a quick wipe down as Nick grabs a chair from a table that doesn’t need it. 

“Two lunch orders and two purified waters,” Piper tells Tony before his attention is stolen and they have to flag him down again. He nods and disappears back into the place’s little kitchen. They don’t serve anything fancy here, just a single, simple meal for lunch and supper.

The table Deacon managed to grab is out of the sun -a couple sections of the bar’s roof fold back to let the sun in during the summer- and Piper is thankful for it. She’s hot and sweaty from their trek, and the press of the bodies in this place isn’t helping with that in the least. The smell of sweat and smoke is strong, but a breeze slips in through the roof and ruffles her hair and it's glorious.

Two plates are plunked unceremoniously down on the table and the noise causes Piper to start. She’d been enjoying the breeze, oblivious to the goings on around them. 

“Hey Joe,” Nick says as sealed bottles of water follow their plates, the hot air fogging the glass and Piper immediately grabs her and pops the swing clamp off. “How’s things? Tony still talkin’ about runnin’ away to Diamond City?”

Joe Savoldi gives Nick a comical double take. “Jesus, Nick! You scared the hell outta me. The hell happen to your neck?” he exclaims and several people around them crane their necks to see what Joe’s on about. _Make a scene much, Joe?_ Piper thinks with some annoyance.

“Why? It ain’t that bad, is it?” Nick’s hand reaches up to touch the edge of one of the claw marks along his neck.

“Nick,” Joe pins him with his gaze, “it looks like you lost a real heated argument with a deathclaw.”

A moment of strange silence descends on their table and beside her, Deacon freezes. It almost goes unnoticed it’s brief enough, but she catches it (probably because he was about to take a bite out his sandwich), and the way that Nick’s smile gets a little hard around the edges as he huffs a breath of laughter.

“Who says I lost?”

“Whoaho! Tough guy, eh? Must be a helluva story. But seriously, Nick. Ya should do somethin’ about that. Bad enough that people can see right through to the back of your head, now they can see down into your insides as well.”

The moment of silence moves off their table and a more uncomfortable one takes its place. Joe hasn’t said anything particularly insulting (yet, just give the man some time, he always delivers), but Deacon has set his sandwich back down on his plate without taking a bite and few more eyes turn toward them, waiting for Joe’s reputation as a big mouth to piss someone off.

“Not like my skin grows back, Joe,” Nick points out amicably, but she knows he’s well practiced at pretending that comments about his synth status don’t rankle him. 

Joe put a hand on the back of Nick’s chair, settling himself at their table for a moment. “‘Course not, anyone who’d seen ya would know that but been plenty of sightings of those synths that look like you. Kill a few of the robotic bastards and ya know, scav for parts.-”

Piper clamps a hand on Deacon’s arm, it’s only going to get worse from here. Joe isn’t going to heed the look on Nick’s face (nor the darker one on Deacon’s), and they hardly need him leaping across the table to grab Joe by the back of the neck to slam him into the nearest hard surface. As much as Joe might need that, she still hasn’t had her lunch, and they don’t have the support in this town the way they do in Diamond City.

“-You’d be doin’ us a favour by trashin’ those Institute lackeys and you wouldn’t have to go around lookin’ like some half-crazed scaver pulled you outta a trash heap.”

A gut-punched look flickers across Nick’s face for a second before his mouth settles into a hard line. Joe finally seems to understand that he might have gone too far and opens his mouth to say something else. Piper’s eyes flick skyward in a plea for strength, but miraculously, it’s Deacon who speaks first.

“How much?” he asks.

“…Er-what?” Joe is a little thrown by the question.

“How much?” Deacon repeats, gesturing to their lunch.

“Oh. 30 caps for both.”

Deacon counts the caps out on the table and then stands, grabbing his bag and then his plate and bottle of water. After a moment, Piper follows. 

“We’ll leave the dishes at Colonel Prescott’s feet,” Deacon tells Joe as they start to wind their way out of the bar, following his lead. 

Joe calls out after them. “Hey! You can’t leave with those. Do ya got any idea how hard them bottles are to find?”

“I wasn’t asking,” Deacon replies and no one stops them from walking out the swing doors. 

Well, that was _awful._ Now she’s regretting clamping down on Deacon’s arm because Joe could use a swift kick in the ass. Seriously. Some people. Deacon moves at a rapid pace away from the bar, a destination seemingly in mind. Good. Because walking around with a plate of food is just weird. When they crest the monument, Deacon tells them that there’s a place off to the left that caravan guards hang out in while off shift. Piper throws him a questioning look. 

He pulls 3 fingers away from the bottle he’s carrying. “I spent 3 months here as a caravan guard. Just gotta act like you belong, trust me. They won’t question.”

Deacon shoulders open a door to a shack that looks like someone’s residence and inside there’s a collection of a four picnic tables in the small space. It’s dark, cramped, and smells of sweat, stale cigarettes (which makes her wants one), and brahmin. There are a few guards chatting the far table and they only spare the three of them a passing look when they come in, lingering slightly on Nick, but Deacon gives them a nod and says that the “fuckin’ bar’s full again.” They just nod in understanding and go back to their conversation.

The three of them take a seat at the picnic table furthest from the guards and finally get a chance to enjoy their lunch. After the first few bites of what is admittedly a pretty good radstag sandwich, Piper drops it back on her plate and looks at Nick.

“Joe’s a prick. Everyone knows he can’t keep his big mouth shut to save his life, and there’s nothin’ wrong with the way you look, Nick. You’re…you.”

Nick nods in agreement but doesn’t say anything. 

“What Piper said,” Deacon concurs and then adds, “Besides, I think you’re hot.”

Piper can’t help the snort of laughter at Deacon’s sly delivery and she opens her mouth to immediately apologize because she didn’t mean to laugh at that, but then Nick starts to chuckle and Deacon blathers on.

“Don’t laugh now, ‘cause I absolutely do. Honest. That big ‘ole hard drive of yours -smarts are sexy, let me tell you, and that charming metal claw you have instead of a hand -flesh is so gauche right now, and you _know_ I drooled when I got to see your insides -they’re your best feature.”

Piper has to cover her mouth to stifle her laughter and Nick’s shoulders are shaking with it. The words themselves aren’t particularly funny, but Deacon’s delivery sells it. It’s the perfect blend of naïve honesty and mockery. He flashes them both a smile and then goes back to his lunch while they take a moment to recover. 

It takes a couple of minutes for the two of them to settle down reasonable levels of seriousness, mostly because they keep catching each other’s eye across the table and then the laughter starts up again. Deacon chuckles every time they start laughing and shakes his head. He’s finished his sandwich by the time the two of them calm enough for Piper to risk eating something and not spit it back out again in a fit of laughter, or worse, choke on it. She takes the sandwich up again and means to eat it as quickly as possible so they can get back to Diamond City at a reasonable hour.

Deacon drains the last of his water, setting the bottle down with a _thunk_ on the wooden table and wraps an arm around Nick’s shoulders, pulling him close. He kisses Nick’s cheek, just above the gap of missing skin and quietly says, “I love you.” The soft, sappy smile that blossoms on Nick’s face is far too intimate a thing to look at and Piper busies herself with finishing her lunch. A moment later there’s a choked sound that comes from Nick and she looks up again, only to see Deacon sliding back to his own spot with a look of utter nonchalance as Nick stares at him wide-eyed and agape. If the man could, he’d be blushing, Piper’s sure of it, and that lands it all squarely in the category of ‘don’t want to know’. 

As soon as Piper’s finished, they grab their dishes and gear and head back out into the afternoon sun. As promised, they leave their dishes at the feet of the statue of Colonel William Prescott, and Deacon throws the Colonel a salute as they start away telling the statue to “give the doctor my best.” Weirdo.

The roads are familiar now and Piper is much more confident about their journey back home. Not that she doubted they’d make it back to Diamond City (well, maybe when that sentry bot was trying to kill them), but she knows these streets, their rubble and she knows that even alone, she could make it back to Diamond City in one piece from here. She might have jinxed their little group with that thought, though, because as they catch sight of the Bunker Hill bridge (the settlement doesn’t look after the thing, but if you’re on the other side of the Charles River, it’s the one you’re likely to take to get to the place. Raiders try and set up shop on it to extort travellers, but they’ve never really succeeded for the last five years or so. Why she isn’t sure, but it’s certainly helped with the flow of trade. There doesn’t seem to be any straggling raiders looking to threaten them today, so Piper isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth), Deacon slows and then stops. Piper and Nick turn to look at him as he slides the tote bag off Nick’s arm. 

“I’m gonna leave you two now. Just a quick detour to drop this stuff off. No point in draggin’ it back to Diamond City, just to drag it out again.”

Nick’s eyes flick off into the ruins to the north before they settle on Deacon again. “Alright.”

“Whoa, wait…what?” Piper asks because she had expected Nick to balk. 

Deacon gives her smile. “Don’t worry. Won’t be more than a half-hour behind you. It’ll just be a drop and dash. Promise.” Even though he talks about leaving, he doesn’t move from the spot he’s standing and Piper narrows her eyes.

“Then we’ll come with you,” she says.

Deacon takes a step back as if moving away might stop her following. “Uh, no. You and Nick have a nice stroll back to Diamond City, don’t upset the Swan, and I’ll see you later.” He turns then, and starts across the street, heading north, away from the bridge. Piper means to go after him, but Nick’s hand curls around her arm. Piper tosses him an annoyed look.

“Come on,” Nick says, ignoring her look. “Nat’s probably worried about you.”

Piper snorts. “Doubt it, but fine. I get it. Can’t let the nosy journalist in on every secret, right?”

Nick just shrugs and lets her arm go. Piper looks back down the street but Deacon’s gone. She sighs. _Well, fine then. Be that way,_ she thinks and her and Nick start across the Bunker Hill bridge.

\- - - - -

By the time they roll into Diamond City, Piper’s hungry, dying of thirst, and her arm and shoulder are aching something fierce. Thankfully, the hot afternoon sun has gone from ‘boiling’ to ‘slightly uncomfortable’ as it moves toward the late-night sunset. They get a few hellos tossed their way from the guards as they head into the atrium, and Danny questions them about their missing companion. 

Nick waves him off. “Don’t worry. Rhett just got side-tracked at Bunker Hill. He’ll be here shortly.”

Piper nods when Danny looks to her for confirmation and they continue without any further interruption. As they head down the ramp into the market, Piper says to Nick, “I suppose you’re gonna go gush to Ellie.”

Nick smiles slightly and nods.

“And I’d love to see that, but-” she gives a dramatic sigh, “-I suppose I should track down Nat and let her know that she hasn’t inherited the paper, and thank Arturo for checking in on her.” Nick walks her to the door of the Publick, “Tell Ellie I’ll be by later to bounce around with her in glee, okay?”

Nick chuckles. “I’ll be sure to inform her.”

“Good. Well, see ya around, Nick.”

He hums in agreement and heads off into the market. Piper shoves the door open and trots down the stairs into the house. She pulls off her shoulder bag with a wince, tossing it on the coffee table in front of the couch and rolls her neck out, trying to stretch the tight area around her injury. There were probably some painkillers in the cabinet in the kitchen and Piper turns to check when the door bursts open and Nat rushes down the stairs.

“Pete said you’d come back,” Nat exclaims as she throws her arms around Piper’s waist, like she hadn’t expected Piper _to_ come back (damnit, why did Nick have to be right?) and Piper reels slightly with the impact, grunting in pain as her shoulder and arm are jostled. “You’re hurt!” Nat immediately pulls back. 

“It’s nothin’. Just a scratch, really.”

Nat narrows her eyes. “You’re a terrible liar.” She quickly spots the freshly healed wounds. “Someone shot you!”

“Something actually, and it's not that bad. I just need some painkillers, some food and water, a long night’s rest, and I’ll be _fine._ ”

“No.” Nat grabs her hand and starts pulling her toward the door. “You need to see Sun.”

Piper pulls free. “Don’t have the caps for that, kiddo,” she says thinking of the red leather trench coat that Becky is holding on to with all fierceness of a mama yao guai. How many times has she had to dip into her savings for the unexpected? Too many. 

“Well, I do.” Nat grabs her hand again.

“Since when you do have caps?”

Nat throws a _‘Why are you so dumb?’_ look over her shoulder as she drags Piper to the door. “Nina and me work with farmers in the afternoons.”

“Yeah, but I thought that was a school thing; ya know, volunteer work.”

“We’re good enough that they decided to pay us,” Nat replies with no little pride in her voice. Piper smiles and gives up fighting Nat on this.

“Way to go, Nat. Always knew one of us had to be capable of supporting life. Clearly, it isn’t me, so I had high hopes for you.”

Nat snorts and pulls open the door. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Despite my best efforts, yeah, y’are.”

“Shut up; you aren’t _that_ bad.” They cross the street to the market proper.

“Mighty high praise comin’ from you.”

As they arrive at Mega Surgery Center, Sun gives them an annoyed look from where’s he’s putting away his things. It’s just nicely closing time in the market and Piper prepares for a lecture.

“Well, every once and awhile you do something right.”

Piper gives a dramatic wince. “Ouch. Doc, you got somethin’ to treat a burn?” she asks and Nat finally cracks a smile.

“And ruin that masterpiece? Hardly.” Sun leans against the counter and crosses his arms and Nat beams at him. God, how is it that she likes that acerbic jerk more than her? “Do you have any actual injuries, Ms. Wright?”

“She’s been shot,” Nat says and Sun straightens from his perch. She’s pretty sure he lives for any sort of weapon induced injury. Probably a nice change of pace from looking after annoying Upperstanders.

He peers at her arm and shoulder, prodding the area and ignoring her hisses of pain as he moves the healing tissue around. “I’d say the laser fire you took burned away part of your humerus and clavicle bones and the single stim you took hasn’t healed them properly. That’s what’s causing the pain.”

“Howdja know it was a laser?” Piper asks, surprised he could tell that and Sun just gives her a look of _‘I’m a doctor, aren’t I?’_

“I suggest another stimpak or that you wear a sling for a week and let the bone finishing healing on its own.”

“Stim,” Nat replies before Piper can tell Sun that she’ll wear a sling (because it’s already 50 caps just to talk to the man let alone another 45 for a stim), and she chokes slightly. Sun looks between them, questioning. “Stim,” Nat repeats firmly, “She’ll never wear a sling long enough, anyways.”

Piper frowns at Nat, who ignores her, and Sun fishes out a stim from his safe with a snort of something suspiciously like laughter. He turns back to face them, holding the stim ready for injection and pauses, looking at Nat. “95 caps,” he tells her (uh…who’s the adult here?) and Nat pulls out a little cloth pouch of caps, counts out five, pockets them, and then dumps the rest on Sun’s counter, scrunching the empty bag up in her hand. Oh God, are those _all_ of her caps?

“ _Nat…_ ” Piper says because she can’t let her do this. “I’ll wear a sling. Don’t spend all your caps on me.”

“Why? You spend them on me.” She waves Sun on then, acting like a vision of the future woman she’ll be and Piper feels gut-punched with the realization that Nat is growing up. She knew that, obviously, but holy smokes, it snuck right up on her just now. 

“Yeah, but I’m your guardian,” Piper counters even as Sun injects half the stim in her arm and the other half in the junction of her neck and shoulder -she can feel the tingle and pull of the stim straightening her abused muscles, “it’s my job to spend caps on you.”

“I don’t need a guardian,” Nat sniffs and Sun shoos them from his clinic front to finish closing. (“-G'night, Doctor Sun,” Nat tosses over her shoulder as they step back into the market. “Night, Ms. Nat,” Sun replies and what the…? Does she have super powers or something? Piper wasn’t even aware Sun _had_ a civil discourse mode.) “But I need my sister, so stop complaining, and try not to get shot again. Seriously. You’ve wiped me out. Five measly caps. You can’t even get a bottle of Nuka Cola for that!”

“I woulda worn the sling.” 

“No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

Piper huffs and folds her arms. She _so_ would have. “You give Arturo any trouble while I was gone?”

“I haven’t seen him for longer than a few minutes in the last week,” Nat replies, hopping up and twirling on one of Takahashi’s stools, telling the robot, “No thanks, Taki,” when he asks his question.

“That’s not an answer.”

Nat rolls her eyes. “ _No,_ I wasn’t any trouble. Nina slept at our house last night so I wasn’t alone.”

“And you talked and giggled all night long and didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

“…Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Piper says, swooping in to tickle Nat’s ribs like their dad used to do, and she lets out a trill of laughter. “I was your age once, ya know. Can’t fool me.” Piper tortures her a few moments longer until she’s begging and laughing in the same breath and then Piper steps back, satisfied her crown as elder sibling is secured again.

“I hate you,” Nat gasps without any malice. 

“I know,” Piper replies with a grin. “Come on, let’s get somethin’ to eat. I’m starving.”

Nat hops off the stool. “I think there’s some brahmin jerky in the cupboards, and some carrots in the fridge.”

“Nah, I was thinkin’ more along the lines of the Dugout. It’s Saturday, right? Radstag stew sounds pretty good right about now.”

“We don’t have the caps.”

“True, but…” Piper throws an arm around Nat’s shoulder and steers her back to their house. “I scrounged like fifty packs of cigs while I was gone, so we’ll barter some of them for food.”

Nat lights up. “Cool! I haven’t had radstag in ages.” 

Yefim takes three unopened packs of cigarettes in exchange for two radstag stews and two bottles of Nuka Cola, promptly selling all of them to some caravanners who just nicely arrived in town. They eat their food al fresco at the tables just outside the doors and talk about what happened on Piper’s trip to the RoboCo Service Center -leaving out the part where Deacon told her who he worked for. She’ll probably tell Nat about it later, but they’re out in the open right now and it isn’t the place for that conversation. 

When they’re done, Piper takes their dishes back inside and then they head back home. Nat’s looking as happy as she ever gets and Piper feels like she’s pulled a major win here today. It’s not like she and Nat don’t have a good relationship or anything, but there’s distance between them sometimes that wasn’t there before their dad’s death and Piper’s never sure how to bridge it completely. 

Nat trails slightly ahead of her, skipping over the broken bits of wood that create the paths through the town. When she gets to the market, she follows a few of the boards, humming slightly off tune a song Piper doesn’t know, then she stops and leans to the side, peering around the far counter of Power Noodles. Across the market, Piper can hear the distinct rise and fall of Percy’s voice. 

“Arturo’s over there,” Nat says, spinning in place to give Piper a knowing look. “He’s talkin’ with Percy.”

“Is he?” Piper replies, adjusting the strap of her bag, and ignoring the look Nat is sending her lest she die of embarrassment. Bad enough Nick looks at her like that, Nat doesn’t need to do it too.

“You should ask him out.”

“I- uh, what?” Piper sputters.

“I like him and Nina’s okay with it.”

Oh God, she’s been talking about this with _Nina?!_

Nat ignores her look of horror and continues. “We could be sisters, then. That’d be cool.”

Piper darts to Nat’s side, throwing a glance around them at the market, but’s it's empty. “We’re not getting _married!_ ” she hisses and Nat shrugs, not looking in the least repentant. 

“You just told me about fighting a robot with a brainjar, getting shot at, and that a sentry bot almost killed you, but you’re afraid to do this?” Nat asks after a moment of Piper clutching desperately to her t-shirt.

“Yes! Are you kidding? I have to live in this town and I’ll never see that stupid robot again and Nick and De- Rhett were there and I have to do this alone and…”

Nat peels Piper’s hand off her t-shirt and uses it to drag Piper across the market, all the while Piper begs her in an undertone to _not do this!_

“Hey, Mr. Rodriguez,” Nat says in a casual sort of ‘funny running into you here’ way. (When did she get to guileful?) “Piper got back today. Safe and sound. You were right about not worryin’.”

Arturo turns from where he’s clearly not having a very productive conversation with Percy and gives Nat a smile, even as his eyes flick to Piper for a brief moment. “‘Course I was, your sister’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”

“Well, Mr. Valentine and Rhett were with her so…” Nat trails off with a shrug. 

“So, she was doubly guaranteed to come home.”

Nat nods and lets go of Piper’s hand. “Nina home?”

Arturo shakes his head. “Went to check on the carrots you guys planted.”

“Okay, see ya later,” Nat says and starts away from Diamond City Surplus, Piper shoots a glare at her back then steels herself to look at Arturo. 

“So…thanks for checking in on Nat,” Piper starts hooking her hands into her bag’s strap -Arturo’s smile is entirely too disarming with those damn dimples, “I really appreciate it.”

“Eh, it’s no problem. She’s a good kid and Nina was dying to get out of the house, so I think she enjoyed spending the night at yours. Can’t vouch for the state they left in, though.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks slightly guilty. “If there’s a mess let me know, and I’ll send her right over to help clean up.”

“Not that I saw, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

There’s a forceful “ahem,” from beside them as Percy clears his vocal processor, effectively interrupting any further conversation. “Do you have any business to conduct here, Ms. Wright?” the Handy asks, his optics narrowing at her, a little miffed to be left out of the conversation.

“We have business, Percy,” Arturo replies, an annoyed tone creeping into his voice. 

“I think not, Mr. Rodriguez. You’ve made your position clear.”

Arturo crosses his arms. “We agreed on 10 caps, yesterday, Percy,” he says in a tone that suggests they’ve had this argument several times already. Fat chance trying to barter Percy down when he’s like this, though.

“And I have no recollection of that conversation. 20 caps is the price.”

Arturo makes a noise of frustration and Piper jumps in before a real fight breaks out. “Actually, Percy I do have some business.”

The Handy’s attention switches to her and from the corner of her eye Arturo throws up his hands. She makes a _‘trust me,’_ gesture with one hand. 

“Finally,” Percy gripes. “Someone reasonable. What do you need?”

“I scrounged a whole bunch of sealed cigarette packs while I was gone and I figured I’d sell some of them. 10 caps a pack, right?”

“Indeed, Miss. Always a high demand product. How many do you have to sell?”

Piper digs through her bag, the holotapes rattling as she does, and starts pulling out every sealed pack she can find. The half-packs she’ll keep for herself and make a tidy stack of caps from the rest (and pay Nat back the money she spent on her). She finds 27 that are acceptable and Percy busies himself with checking them for holes in the packaging before he counts out 270 caps in exchange. Arturo watches the whole thing with a careful eye, arms crossed again, and looking somewhere between annoyed and interested.

“Anything else, Ms. Wright?”

Piper shakes her head. “But Arturo here wants to buy something, right?” she turns to look at him, raising her eyebrows in encouragement.

Arturo uncrosses his arms and with the toe of his boot taps a large-ish, rectangular, terracotta planter that’s sitting at his feet. “10 caps.”

There’s moment where Percy looks like he’s about start their previous argument again -optics narrowing, and pulling together- but he sort of twitches and then says in his usual chipper voice, “It’s deal!”

Arturo looks surprised for a moment and then quickly dumps ten caps into Percy’s register. 

“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Rodriguez.”

“Uh, yeah. You to Percy,” Arturo replies with some hesitancy and crouches to pick the planter off the ground. Piper follows him back to his shop, where he sets it down on the counter with a grunt. The thing must be heavy. “What the hell was that?” he asks shooting a look back at Percy. “I argued with that damn robot for 15 minutes.”

“Pretty desperate for a deal, then?” Piper asks with a grin, feeling really good about helping him with this.

“It’s the principle of the thing. We agreed on 10 caps.” Arturo shakes his head and mutters under his breath in Spanish. Probably nothing nice, judging from the tone. “Howdja do that?”

Piper steps closer and whispers so that Percy won’t overhear her. “He has a glitch. If you sell him something, it seems to wipe the previous transaction from his memory.” She steps back. “And I _might_ …make it every once and while, so don’t tell anyone. Myrna might get wise and fix it.”

Arturo looks at her for a moment and then starts laughing. “That explains a lot, actually.”

“Yeah, took me a while to figure it out, but there ya go. So, this for Nina?” Piper tilts her head at the planter. “Heard they were big in the farmin’ community now.”

“No. I used to grow a few useful things back in Quincy, but haven’t had the time to get started again. Then, I saw this and figured maybe I should make time, ya know? And maybe Nina will help take care of it this time.”

“Huh. Never figured you for a gardener.”

Arturo sweeps into a mocking bow. “I’m a man of many talents.”

Piper half laughs. “I think you’ve been spendin’ too much time around Rhett.”

He shrugs and nods in acceptance of that assessment. “Glad you’ve come back in one piece, Piper.”

“Yeah, Nat’s a good kid, but ya don’t want to be stuck with her forever, right?”

“Pretty sure she’d manage on her own, but I’d look after if you didn’t. Though, for your sake, I’d like it better if you kept coming back.”

Piper smiles and flushes, her heart suddenly deciding to make a vicious appearance and knocks savagely against her ribs, forcing the air out of her for a response.

Arturo raps his knuckles on the counter a couple of times. “Well, thanks for your help. See you later, Piper.”

“Uh…yeah. Yeah.” Piper clears her throat slightly. “See ya around.” She turns away feeling like an utter chickenshit for not saying anything. There was plenty of opportunities just now to- Piper stops short, is she actually considering it? Disappointed for not doing as Nat suggested? 

And…well, why shouldn’t she? Deacon and Nick got theirs, and seriously, how long did that take? Two-frigging-years, that’s how long and does she want to spend the next two (or whatever) years pining and wishing and…Oh God, what if someone else has more guts than her and asks him out? She can’t even bear the thought.

Piper spins on her heel. “Hey, Arturo?”

“Yeah?” He looks up from where’s unlocking the door of his house and suddenly she’s feeling less confident about this. _Damnit, just say it, Piper. You’ve faced worse things in the last 24 hours._

“Would you, uh… like to get a drink with me?” She can feel the heat rising off her face and it isn’t just from the mild sunburn she’s sporting.

Arturo pauses, then turns to face her more fully. “Today?” he asks and _Jesus God_ why couldn’t he have just said yes or no like a decent human being and let her think of a date and time later.

“…Yes? We could meet at the-” _Think, girl. Think._ “-The Taphouse. On the outdoor patio. Say like, in….an hour?”

Arturo looks at her for a moment, his face not moving much beyond a look of surprise and this was a bad idea. Oh God, _so bad._

“Or maybe some other…time?” Piper asks, trying to back peddle. “I just got back and everything, so maybe-”

“Okay. Yes. An hour. The Taphouse; I think I can manage that,” Arturo says, words oddly stilted, but then he smiles at her so bashfully that she might just _die_ from the effect it has on her. Instead, she nods once, and turns back around, trying to measure her steps back to the Publick instead of running like she really wants to do right now. 

Inside the safety of her house, Piper starts freaking out. He said yes! HE SAID YES! She dances around a bit, the holotapes jingling with her in a strange sort of song, and her heart fit to burst right out of her chest. Suddenly, the door bangs open and Piper’s head snaps up, Nat rushes inside. 

“What’re you doing?” she accuses as she hops down the stairs. “Why aren’t you getting ready?”

“What? How did you- Were you _spying_ on us?!”

“Duh,” Nat replies and starts pulling off Piper’s bag, making her bend so she can pull it over Piper’s head. “Stop messin’ around, already. Clock’s ticking.”

It hits Piper then that she hasn’t had a bath in like three days and her hair’s a greasy mess and she’s still wearing the same shirt she was shot in and she’s covered in radiation dust and grime and _fuck_ she only has an hour.

“Exactly,” Nat says upon seeing the look on Piper’s face. “I’ll find some clean clothes, you find some water.”

Piper darts over to their water jug and lifts it, but it’s frustratingly light and it comes right off the counter. “Why didn’t you get water?” she yells across the house. It just had to be today, didn’t it?

“Forgot!”

Well, that’s just great. It’ll take twenty minutes, easy, to haul water from the purifier and then to boil enough for a bath will take even longer than that. She could just wash in cold water, but that still leaves hauling enough for that. Ugh! One of these days she’s going to kill Nat. Piper grabs the jug, dumps what’s left in it the kettle on the stove, and then takes it to the door, picking up the other empty’s waiting to be filled. Nat trots down the stairs from Piper’s loft. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Getting water, what does it look like?” Piper grumbles.

Nat throws the clothes she picked out on the couch. “You don’t have time for that.”

“Well I can’t go like this, now can I?”

“Ask Ellie if you can borrow her shower.”

“What? _No._ That’d be weird. I can’t just traipse across town with my stuff and knock on the agency door and be all like, ‘Oh Ellie, do a friend a favour, I have a hot date and I look like a hot mess’.”

Nat crosses her arms. “Why not? I bet she’d say yes.” Piper frowns at her and Nat starts grabbing the jugs from Piper’s hands. “It’s an emergency, Piper,” she says, and why does she have to be so damn reasonable all the time?

“Okay, okay. I don’t have time to fight you on this.” Piper grabs her bag from the coffee table and dumps its contents out, making a mess. Then she shoves it at Nat. “Clothes.” While Nat packs, Piper grabs her soap from under the sink and then tosses it in on top, swinging it back around her shoulders, noting that the action only causes the barest tinge of discomfort. 

They head back out into the market, Nat determined to come and offer support, and quickly make their way to Third Street, Piper tossing a look at Commonwealth Weaponry to make sure that Arturo isn’t still outside. As they exit the market, Piper makes Nat check around the corner of Third to make sure that Arturo isn’t on this side of the street either. She rolls her eyes, but does it, and then waves Piper around when she finds nothing by a couple farmers on their way to the Dugout.

In the narrow concrete hall of Valentine Detective Agency, Nat raps on the door while Piper shoots furtive glances at Arturo’s door across the street. After a moment, the door opens and Deacon gives them a surprised smile. Before he has a chance to say anything, Nat looks at him with her solemn, dark eyes and says, “It’s an emergency.” They’re immediately ushered in and after quickly reassuring Deacon, Ellie, and Nick that it’s not like a _life_ threatening emergency Piper blurts out, 

“I need to borrow your shower, Ellie. There’s isn’t any water at our house-”

“My fault,” Nat says.

“-and I asked Arturo out on a date and he said yes and we’re supposed to meet in an hour and I look like _this._ ” Piper picks at her shirt. “Have mercy.”

There’s a moment of surprised silence from the group, then Ellie squeals and rushes Piper, pulling her into a tight hug. “Of course! Oh my God, this is probably the best day ever! First them, now you.” Ellie pulls her around the back of the agency. “I’ll get you some towels. And be careful, the water’s probably pretty hot from sitting in the sun all day.”

Ellie leaves the towels on the stairs and heads back out into the main area -where Piper can hear Deacon chatting Nat up. Piper quickly undresses and hops into the stall, turning the knobs with slight trepidation because she’d never actually used a shower before. The water eases out slowly, and Piper gains the confidence to turn the volume up. It rushes down and over her in a gloriously hot cascade and Piper wonders if there’s any chance of talking Nick into building one of these for her because damn, this is like a hundred times better than a bath in an old steel tub.

She quickly scrubs the grime off her skin, and then attacks her hair with her bar of soap, making sure to catch her face with the suds and then, as an afterthought, her armpits as well. Once the soap has all washed down the drain, Piper turns the shower off and peer around the curtain for the towels that Ellie left out. She grabs them from the stairs and wraps them around her hair and body before stepping out on the mat, Nat is waiting for her on the bed. In the main office area, the other three are talking about Deacon leaving in the morning.

“Could you maybe turn around so I can dry?” Piper asks with some exasperation when Nat starts pulling clothes out of her bag. Nat sighs and turns around on the bed. Piper rubs the towel across her arms and legs, catching all the lingering water droplets, and then wraps it around herself again. She joins Nat at the bed, the concrete floor cold on her bare feet. 

Nat holds up the shirt she packed. It’s the only nice shirt Piper has and she only has it because Becky bullied her into buying it. It’s too delicate for everyday wear, with its light material and sleeveless nature. The only thing Piper ever liked about it was the colour: mint green. Piper stares at in dismay. 

“I can’t wear that!” she whispers urgently. 

“Why? It’s pretty.”

“I haven’t _shaved._ ”

Nat gives her a look of _‘Well?’_ and points to the shower.

“I also didn’t bring my razor.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“You do realize that Nick can hear us, right?”

Nat look behind her and says in the same soft voice they’ve been using, “Don’t tell Ellie, Nick.” Then she looks back at Piper. “Now get in there.”

Piper grumbles but heads back to the shower. “Please tell me you didn’t pack shorts as well.”

“No, you don’t have any clean ones.”

“Thank God for that.”

Piper quickly shaves with a bit of water and soap and rinses with a splash. Then she grabs the towel again and dries in the confines of the shower stall. When she steps out again, Nat tosses a pair of underwear at her head they stick to the towel wrapped around her hair and Nat giggles. Piper peels them off and slips them on, a slight smile on her face. 

“Okay. What else did you pack?” Piper asks as she shifts through the clothes. “Nat, where’s my bra?”

“You didn’t have a clean one. You’ve been putting off doing laundry for like a week, remember?”

Piper groans. “I can’t wear this-” she holds up the green top “-without a bra. I’ll… _show_ through it.”

“Like he’ll care.”

Piper blushes. “I care!”

“It’s too late now, Piper. Just do it.”

Piper pulls the towel off her head and tosses it at Nat. “One of these days I’m going to kill you, you know that, right?” Nat hums in confirmation and hangs the towel on the bed’s headboard.

Piper turns around, takes off the second towel, stares at the stupid top for a moment in indecision, then sighs and slides the top on. It feels weird to wear it knowing that other people are going to see her just…free wheeling like this. Piper clenches her fists and turns around. “Well?”

There’s a moment of silence from Nat, then, “If you stopped looking so angry, you might actually be kinda pretty. Though, you should put some pants on.”

Thankfully, the pants that Nat packed are just a regular pair of jeans. Ones that she hasn’t actually seen in awhile and had been kind of missing without knowing she’d been missing them. She wonders where Nat dug them up as she quickly jumps into them and then pulls on a pair of socks, along with her boots. Nat makes a face at the sight of them, but she doesn’t have any other footwear at this moment, so they’ll just have to do. 

“Don’t wear your hat,” Nat says when Piper stands from the bed and adjusts her top slightly, feeling self-conscious about her nipples just being all out there and…stuff.

“Well, duh. You got an elastic?”

Nat pulls one from her wrist. “You should braid it.”

“And did you learn how to do that while I was gone?” Piper asks with heavy sarcasm as she gathers her damp hair.

“No, but it would look better than just a ponytail.”

“Well, since neither one of us can do that, this is gonna have to do.”

“I can. If you want,” Ellie says from where she’s leaning on the cinderblock wall, watching them, and they both turn, slightly startled. Piper hadn’t heard them stop talking out there.

“She does,” Nat says and climbs off the bed, grabbing Piper’s bag with all her dirty clothes in it. Ellie looks to Piper for confirmation and Piper fishes for her pocket watch to check the time.

“If you can do it in less than twenty minutes.”

Ellie smiles and nods. “Grab a chair out there and I’ll get my pick.”

Piper heads back out into the main agency area and the moment she does, Deacon lets out a long whistle. Nick gives him a good-natured shove. 

“Lookin’ good, Piper,” Deacon says and holds out a hand for Nat to high-five on her way by. She does and then hops up on the edge of Ellie’s desk while Piper takes a seat in the chair just in front of it. 

“It’s not to…” she trails off and picks at her top. 

“You look lovely,” he replies in all seriousness and then gives her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Is he being honest or not? Piper looks at him for a moment, trying to discern his meaning, but he looks away and settles himself in Nick’s desk chair. 

“Thanks?”

Deacon hums in acknowledgement and Piper looks at Nick. He rolls his eyes, twirling a finger next to his head. Piper and Nat laugh. “I saw that,” Deacon idly notes as he twirls in Nick’s chair and Nick takes a seat in Ellie’s.

“Okay,” Ellie says as she rounds the corner, holding a couple combs in her hands and small glass bottle. She sets them down on the desk next to Nat. “Nick, my bobby pin box is in the top right drawer, grab it for me, please.” As Nick does that, Ellie opens the glass bottle and pours a tiny bit of the liquid inside on her palm. Then she rubs it into Piper’s hair. It smells like hubflowers and mint.

When Piper asks what it’s for, Ellie tells her that it will make it easier to comb through her hair and make her natural curls less frizzy. 

“Is that the stuff that John makes?” Piper asks thinking that there’s a lot of stuff she misses out on being broke all the time. 

Ellie hums in agreement and starts carefully picking through the knots in Piper’s hair. Sitting here, having Ellie deal with her hair, brings back foggy memories of Piper’s mom doing the same thing once upon a time. Once, her hair is knot free, Ellie picks up her other comb and starts dividing, pulling on her head as she starts braiding and swooping up further chunks of hair as she goes. Her hands are steady and practiced. When she gets to the bottom, Ellie uses the elastic that she took from Piper’s hair and ties and the ends together. Then, she tugs on the weave of the braid to loosen it slightly, so it’s not so tight on Piper’s head. Once she’s satisfied with the look of it, Ellie tucks the short end of the braid, up and under the main part, hiding it from view, and uses a few bobby pins to secure it in place. 

“Mirror,” Ellie says to Nick, “Left drawer.” He fishes it out for her and hands it over. Ellie gives it to Piper. “Okay?” she asks, using the end of her comb to pull free a few strands of hair to soften the look of it -they aren’t quite dry, but walking in the waning sun will fix that.

“Ellie, I didn’t even know hair _could_ do that. It’s great. Thank you.” Piper takes a deep breath with the realization that she’d now officially ready and there nothing left to do but head over to The Taphouse. Piper stands. “Well, I guess this is it…and I think I might be sick.”

Ellie wraps a warm hand around her arm. “It’s just nerves. You’ll be okay.”

“How’s this scarier than a sentry bot?” Nat asks with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s infinitely scarier, kiddo,” Deacon replies, voice solemn. “Bullet wounds heal. Broken hearts? Not so much.”

“And takin’ this kinda chance don’t get easier with time,” Nick adds. 

“Wow, you guys are makin’ me feel so much better about this,” Piper grumbles. 

“It’ll be fine,” Ellie says, shooting Nick and Deacon a look of _‘Shut up’_ “Art likes you, you like him -everything will go great. Now go, before you’re late.” She pushes Piper to the door.

“Okay, okay, I’m going. Wish me luck?” Piper asks with her hand on the door knob. There’s a chorus in reply, but Piper notes that Deacon’s voice isn’t among them. When she looks back, there’s a look of apology on his face. Piper frowns at him and he looks away. What’s his problem? She shakes her head and opens the door, resolving to forget about Deacon and his weird mood -she’s got far more important things to focus on. 

Just as she steps out into the street, Ellie catches her attention from the agency’s concrete hallway. “Hey, stand up straight; don’t be afraid to show off what you’ve got.” Ellie throws her a wink and grin before disappearing inside again, leaving Piper to blush in the middle of the street.

\- - - - -

Arturo’s already waiting for her by the time Piper climbs up to the Taphouse’s patio. The tables are only about half full (most of the real drinking takes place inside or down in the Dugout Inn) and Arturo has secured one near the railing so they have a view of the city spread out below. That’s the best thing about being up here -really the only thing since Wellingham actively discourages Lowerfielders from being on the patio (even though she and the robot have an…understanding), but today it has the second excellent quality of being away from anyone who might make annoying comments about their date.

Arturo catches sight of her almost immediately and stands from his chair as she winds through the few tables to him -making sure to stand straight and smile. This certainly isn’t her usual dress, and the widening of Arturo’s eyes as he takes her in makes that abundantly clear. Piper isn’t sure if she should blush in mortification or tilt her chin and bask in the power that comes from the knowledge that she made him react like that, and ends up settling somewhere in between the two.

When she arrives, he pulls out a chair for her and helps her get seated before returning to his own. That’s so ridiculously Old World; she didn’t think anyone did things like that anymore.

“You look…amazing,” Arturo says after a beat of silence and Piper blushes further.

“Well, it’s pretty amazing what a girl can do when she realizes that soap is a thing that exists.”

He sort of laughs at her joke and Piper tries to ease the tension out of her shoulders. She isn’t the only one who took the time to put themselves together before coming out on this date. Arturo ditched his grease-stained and burnt jumpsuit for a pair of jeans a short-sleeved dress shirt that doesn’t look like it’s seen the light of day in a while, and he cleaned up the stubble around his goatee. He looks really great and Piper tells him so. 

Wellingham appears at their table then and saves them from having to make further stilted conversation for the moment. “Please tell me you don’t want anything to drink. _Please._ ”

Arturo raises his eyebrows at the Handy’s attitude, but Piper is well accustomed to dealing with the robot. 

“Why else would we be here, Welly?-” Wellingham makes a noise of disgust at the nickname, “-Now, we’ll have two beers.” Piper looks to Arturo for confirmation, he nods. “And don’t bring that crap Cooke distills. We want real Gwinnett ale.”

Wellingham sighs. “Very well, but just know that I detect very low levels of class at this table and I take no pleasure in serving you.”

“Love you too, Welly.”

The Handy grumbles and floats away to get their order. 

“What’s his problem?” Arturo asks.

“Oh, you’ve never been up here?-” Arturo shakes his head. “Well, Wellingham’s programmed with serious levels of haughty class-snobbery to appease the Upperstanders that think they’re better than us grubby Lowerfielders.”

A few of the tables turn at Piper’s words and give them varying degrees of dirty looks. She ignores them. Arturo glances around as if seeing the place in a new light.

“Exactly,” Piper says, reading his look, “But for all their snobbishness, Cooke has no problem taking our caps when we deign to drink in his bar.”

“Seems a bit hypocritical.”

“That’s Diamond City in a nutshell for you.”

“Here’s your order,” Wellingham says and opens the two beers at their table. “That’ll be 14 caps.”

Arturo fishes for the money at the same time Piper does and he waves her away. “I’ll get the first round,” he says. “You get the second.”

“Alright,” Piper agrees and settles back in her chair. Hard to argue with logic like that. 

“Try not to make a mess, hmm?” Wellingham tells them as he deposits the bottlecaps in the little metal box welded to his frame. Then, he leaves to wait on someone with more class.

Arturo holds up his beer and Piper clinks hers against it. The night only get’s better from there. 

Piper talks about her adventure at the RobCo Sales and Service Center again and the horrors that lay underneath the seemingly unassuming building. Which somehow morphs into a lengthy discussion about which Old World ideals are worth keeping and that leads to them talking about the crumbling Minutemen, and _that_ leads to Piper questioning Arturo about the specific Minuteman that visited Diamond City in March because surely, he must know the man or heard of him when he lived in Quincy.

Even on a date, Piper can’t seem to hang up her reporter hat, but Arturo doesn’t seem to mind and tells her a bit about Captain Garvey. He’s fairly familiar with the Minutemen as they often bought ammo from him with their fund from the town and so he chatted to a few of them on a regular basis. From there, they end up talking about Diamond City and what Arturo thinks about it compared to Quincy and if he’s happy with the move.

“Well, yeah, for the most part. We’d always planned to move here once Nina was old enough for school, but when Jess died…” Arturo shrugs and looks away, the light of the lantern on their table catching his throat as he swallows. “It just took longer than I thought to get here, and with a little more compromise than I initially planned for, that’s all.”

Piper reaches across the table to squeeze his arm. “What was she like? I mean, if you don’t mind talking about her.”

Arturo sort of smiles and shakes his head. “I don’t mind. Jess was…loud and brash and stubborn and a wanderer. She was forever making inopportune and often cringe worthy jokes and was cocky beyond all reason.” He laughs. “If it wasn’t obvious from my knowledge of guns, I used to be a merc. Jess and I were apart of this smallish company that doesn’t exist anymore -they were absorbed into the Gunners about 15 years ago, and when they were, we decided to part from them. (Even then the Gunners didn’t have a great reputation.) So, we wandered all over the Commonwealth, down into Road’s Land and over into Connetti, taking whatever job (within reason, of course) that would bring us caps to move on to the next place. Jess loved it.”

“But you didn’t?” Piper asks when Arturo doesn’t immediately continue.

“At the time? Yeah, I did. There’re some amazing things to see out there.” He leans back in his chair shifting so that Piper’s hand goes from his arm to his hand. Her heart speeds up. “When Jess became pregnant, we knew we had to settle somewhere, even temporarily, because we didn’t exactly have a lifestyle conducive to raising a kid. Quincy was close at hand. I started a weapon’s repair business to support us, which just grew into a proper shop with deals with caravans and traders before my eyes, and as soon as she was able Jess started taking merc contracts again. 

“At first, they were close to home, in the Quincy area so she was home every other night, but the whole settling down was never her thing, so as Nina got older, Jess took jobs that pulled her farther and farther from home for longer periods of time. She’d be home for a week or so at a time and then be gone again, but it worked for us. 

“I realized I like being the homebody, permanently living in a settlement and getting to know neighbours and customers alike, the familiarity of it all and the comfort that comes from a group of people working together. It was like the merc company all over again, just less shooting people.” He laughs again. “Nina and I were Jess’ tether, her security of home and happiness and place to look forward to be in again once the job was done, but she never had to stay put to please us. She was happy, we were happy; it just worked.” His smile slides off his face.

“Then one day, Jess didn’t come home on her own…. A caravanner we were good friends with brought her body back to us. She’d been ambushed just outside of town by a pack of Gunners who didn’t like that she was a better merc than them.” Arturo’s voice is flinty as he recites this last part and for a moment she can see the merc he’d once been. “Minutemen managed picked off a few of them, but didn’t arrive in time to save her, and the Gunners weren’t interested in starting a real fight once they’d finished the job.” He looks out over the lights of Diamond City, gathering his emotions, and Piper realizes that it’s dark out -it must sometime after 10 p.m. She looks at their table and sees the remnants of their beer bottles scattering the surface of it. They’d literally sat here talking until after the sun had finally finished setting. Wow.

Arturo looks back at her, an apologetic smile on his face as he bounces their joined hands on the table. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you a history lesson there.”

“S’okay. I like listening to you talk.” And oh God did she just say that _out loud?!_ Arturo’s smile gets wider, bringing out his dimples again. “Besides,” Piper continues trying to fix that moment of embarrassing honesty, “Nat told you about our dad, seemed only fair I get to hear your story.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me the whole story, so I think you owe me, but-” Arturo stretches in his chair, “-That’s a tale for another day. Plus, the robot is giving me the eye. I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

Piper twists in her chair and finds Wellingham fluttering near the entrance of the patio. There aren’t any other patrons left but them and that’s probably why he hasn’t demanded they leave. No one left to put a show on for. “Right. Well then, I guess we’d better go.” Piper pulls her hand from Arturo’s and stands. He follows suit and the two of them head out. Piper says good night to Wellingham and gets a bow of sorts in return, then they nod at the DCS guard on duty as they start down the ramp into the Lowerfield.

For all their conversation on the patio, the walk back to the market is quiet save for the sound of their boots on the metal ramp and then on the wooden planks as they hit the ground. From off to their right, the boisterous noise of the Dugout Inn travels on the warm night air, making it seem like they’ve been left a great party way too early, and across the way at Power Noodles, Takahashi is serving a couple of stragglers. Beyond that, Piper can hear Percy making a trade with someone.

Despite the slowness of their steps, they eventually arrive at The Publick Occurrences. Piper stands just ahead of the stairs that lead to her front door and looks at her hands for a moment, trying to get her suddenly racing heart under control, before looking up at Arturo. His face looks the way she feels. 

“So…thanks for the drinks and the conversation,” Piper says with a flushed smile. “I had a good time.”

“Me too.”

She nods. “That’s good. So, I suppose you’d considered doing it again-” a flash of blond hair catches her eye from in between Takahashi and the counter of Power Noodle. “Not her! _Not now!_ ” Piper hisses and panics slightly, grabbing Arturo’s hand and dragging him into the trailer that houses her main printing press. She ducks behind it, pulling Arturo down with her as they hide in the dark and wait for the woman to go by.

“Piper, what’s wrong?” Arturo asks, voice low. She shushes him. Piper peers around the press, listening to the measured steps of the woman on the wooden boards. She stops in front of the Publick and Piper moves back out of sight, holding her breath, and willing the woman to just keep walking instead of knocking on the door like she does sometimes when she’s had a bit too much to drink. 

After what seems like an eternity, she moves on and Piper lets out a sigh of relief but refuses to move until she hears the woman’s tread on the ramp.

“What was the hell was that?” Arturo whispers.

Piper cautiously stands, pulling Arturo up with her. “ _That_ was Ann Codman and she _really_ doesn’t like the paper,” Piper replies, equally quiet. “Half the complaints I get are from her and she doesn’t pass up the chance to harass me when it presents itself.” Piper lets go of Arturo’s hand, almost as an afterthought, and moves to tuck her hair behind her ear in a comforting gesture of familiarity, only to remember that her hair is braided. Damnit. “I didn’t want her to wreck our night, so…I improvised.”

“Wait, she _harasses_ you?” There’s a tone of incredulity in his voice that doesn’t quite mask the outrage underlying it. 

“Just verbally,” Piper elaborates, trying and appease that outrage. “It’s not like she brandishes a knife or anything, and enemies are part and parcel of this gig. You do know that like half the town hates me on any given day, right?” 

She can’t see his expression clearly in the gloom of the trailer but after a moment he says, “Yeah, but it’s one thing to hear about it and another to watch you hide from it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t’ve if you weren’t with me, but like I said, I didn’t want her to wreck our night.”

There’s silence from Arturo and Piper wonders if she’s said something wrong. She was just being honest about the situation and she can’t do anything about it unless she caves to the idea that her paper is better off printing gossipy trash or pointless feel-good pieces. The truth is her weapon against the world and she won’t give it up without a fight.

When the silence stretches on too long, Piper gets a little impatient. “Say something. _Anything._ Even if it’s just to tell me that I’m ridic-” 

Arturo pulls her into a kiss. 

He misses the mark slightly at first (well, it _is_ dark in the trailer), but he wastes no time in fixing that. For a moment, she’s too stunned to do anything other than let him kiss her, and then he slows like he realized that he’d maybe come on a little strong just then, and Piper finds her footing. His thumb strokes along her cheek and Piper curls a hand around Arturo’s neck, raising a little on the balls of her feet to press closer.

Then, as suddenly as it began Arturo pulls back, sharply. He back peddles out of the trailer, bumping into the printing press and he goes, nearly hitting the ground. When he’s outside in the light of the market, he paces slightly, running a hand through his hair. 

“Soy tan idiota! _Mierda!_ ” he curses, throwing his hands on his hips and then looks at Piper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve…”

Piper steps out of the trailer looking at him in some confusion. “For what? I was totally there for that kiss, didn’t see me complainin’.”

He sighs. “I know, but I- I can’t do this. I shouldn’t’ve lead you on, or agreed to this date…” He curses in Spanish again, long and low and Piper feels like someone just wrenched the rug out from under her feet.

“…What?” she demands, voice wavering slightly.

He steps closer, clearly agitated. “I like you, Piper. A lot. But you’re-” he sharply gestures to the _Publick Occurrences_ sign above them, “-and I made an agreement and if we do this…thing, then I lose my credibility in town and-”

“Become a pariah, just like me?” she hisses at him, fists clenching. “Well, thank you for saving me the embarrassment and _hurt_ by letting me down easy. Oh, wait. You didn’t.”

Arturo flinches. “I’m sorry; I messed it up. If circumstances were different…”

“You’d what? Deign to date me like some…” She trails off as his words filter into her brain properly and the pieces of a puzzle she’d been skirting the edge of for the last year finally comes together in her mind. “Oh my God,” she whispers, “ _You’re_ the Railroad agent in town.”

He freezes as soon as the words leave her mouth looking torn between denying it and telling her to keep her voice down. After a moment, his mouth draws into a thin line and he nods. Arturo doesn’t even ask how she knows, he just accepts that she does, that she figured it out on her own. Piper closes her eyes and understands with crushing clarity why Deacon didn’t wish her luck. The sonuvabitch knew she was doomed from the beginning.

“ _Asshole,_ ” she swears and Arturo slumps, assuming she means him. And hell, he can take part of that if he wants, but it’s Deacon she’d pissed off at in this moment. How many times did she ask who had replaced him as the Railroad’s agent in town and every time he skirted the question. Hadn’t she given her word? Wasn’t she worth a bit of trust in this? God, she had to see Arturo every _day;_ Nat and Nina played together! 

Tears started welling up in her eyes as her emotions began to get the best of her. Piper fixes her gaze on Arturo, giving him a hard look. “You’d better get home,” she says, “and we’ll just forget this night ever happened. You for obvious reasons and me… well, no one likes to be reminded that they’re the town leper.”

“Piper-”

She makes a sharp motion with her hand, silencing him. “ _Don’t._ Don’t. Just let me keep what little of my dignity I have left. Please.” Piper gives Arturo one last look, seeing every bit of her pain reflected in his face, and then turns on her heel and marches inside her house, closing the door behind her with a final _click._

And if then she crawls into her bed and sobs…well, that’s nobody’s business but hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Piper, I’m so sorry…
> 
> Road’s Land = Rhode Island, Connetti = Connecticut
> 
> Part of me feels bad for bastardizing the names of states and provinces because surely some people can read, right? But then I hear Raul in my head go “It’s not Twosun, it’s Tucson.” And yeah…Wastelanders would just bastardize the crap outta that stuff.
> 
> This chapter was supposed to be half Piper and half Nick, but Piper had a lot to say so… _Next time on a very special episode of Clone High:_ Nick and Deacon smooshy-smoosh and we’ll finally leave Diamond City and deal with that drama.
> 
> Liberties taken with Bunker Hill’s buildings and such because I walked through the place recently and everything is open to the air. Uh, winter is a thing that happens in Massachusetts, people. It’s not summer all the damn time…


	25. I want you to know, this is all goin’ on your bill.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _KATHARINA: Husband, let’s follow, to see the end of this ado._
> 
> _PETRUCHIO: First kiss me, Kate, and we will._
> 
> _KATHARINA: What, in the midst of the street?_
> 
> _PETRUCHIO: What, art thou ashamed of me?_
> 
> _KATHARINA: No, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss._
> 
> _PETRUCHIO: Why, then let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away._
> 
> _KATHARINA: Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay._
> 
> v _PETERCHIO: Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:_  
>  _Better once than never, for never is too late._
> 
> _-Taming of the Shrew (5.4.124)_

“You want me to run for mayor?” Ellie asks the with a look of pure incredulity from where she’s seated on the edge of her own desk. “Are you two out of your damn minds?”

To Nick, that’s a question for the ages. Since the moment he awoke in that trash heap, he’s been asking himself that very thing because in this world, he’s either crazy or it is and to be frank, there are days when he isn’t sure which one is true. Though, at least right now, Nick is fairly certain he’s the sane one.

“Actually, the three of us,” Jack corrects with a smirk as he leans further back in Nick’s chair, looking like he’s about to tip the thing over. One false move and the wheels will shift and bam! “Piper thinks it’s a great idea too, but she’s busy right now, so…”

“We were supposta do this with her,” Nick says, “but I think she’ll forgive us—” Jack’s smile falters briefly at those words, but it returns in full strength a moment later. His weird attitude hasn’t gone unnoticed by Nick. “—Point is, Ellie, we wouldn’t be brinin’ this up if we didn’t think it both a good idea and that you were capable.”

“More than capable,” Jack agrees, “I’d even wager to say that you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

Ellie smiles and shakes her head. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Definitely a compliment, though at this point, sliced bread would be a better mayor than McDonough, so just imagine how awesome you’d be.”

“Piper’s already elected herself your campaign manager,” Nick adds with a smile.

Ellie looks between the two of them. “Well, I’m sure to succeed then, with all the weight of _three_ people backing my run, one of which doesn’t even live in this city anymore.” Her tone is as sarcastic and as pointedly cutting as it ever gets. Which is to say, that it’s liable to flay someone alive.

The kid winces and lets Nick’s chair come to a rest on the floor properly again. Good, now he doesn’t have to worry about Jack cracking his head on the concrete. “Okay, fair enough, but you start the right whisper campaign a few months before hand and I bet you’ll go from three to half the damn town in no time flat. Add in a well-crafted platform and thoughtful consideration of the Diamond City’s most pressing issues, you’ll get all the votes you need to punt that selfish blowhard outta office.”

“Sounds like you’re my campaign manager, Deacon.”

If Ellie’s talking like that, she’s already halfway there to accepting this idea. Nick knows that she sometimes chafes at the bit around the office, she’s too smart and ambitious (though, she’d never say such a thing aloud) to want to spend the rest of her days working for him. He knew it the moment she asked to do just that, that theirs was always going to be a temporary business arrangement.

“Well, I may have helped a friend run for class president once,” Jack admits with faux smugness and Nick isn’t sure if it’s a joke or the truth, “but you need someone who has an excellent feel for this place and can put their finger on the pulse of it and that person is no longer me. Piper is both your best and worse choice, there really isn’t another.” 

Yeah, that’s the problem with Piper: she’s so polarizing, but the kid’s right, no one else has a feel for this town like she does. No one else can drive to the heart of all the issues that are rankling people, the ones they talk about in the bar and the ones they only talk about in the security of their living rooms. Ellie’s going to need someone with that kind of pinpoint insight if she’s going to make a successful go at this.

“Besides,” Nick says, “she already signed up for the job. You couldn’t possibly crush her by saying no.”

“And if I said no to the whole thing?”

“You won’t,” Jack says with complete confidence. “Because you’re just like Nick. You see injustice and you want to put an end to it. This is your opportunity to do just that.”

Nick glances over at Jack with a look that says, _‘I caught that omission.’_ and Jack returns it with a blithe look of _‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’_ Ellie watches the two of them with hawk eyes.

“Don’t people usually put more thought into this, rather than let their weird friends talk them into it because it sounded like a good idea at the time?” Ellie asks after a moment.

Jack looks at her with an eyebrow raised. “You’ve never thought about it?” he asks, almost sarcastically, but not quite. “You never thought about how you would repeal that idiotic anti-ghoul decree if you had a chance? You didn’t read Piper’s piece on caravan traffic slowing to the city because of tariffs and think that if you only had the power, you’d rip that law up and promote economic prosperity? You never wondered about renegotiating trade deals with Bunker Hill, Quincy, and maybe a new one with Goodneighbour, to allow for free trade?” He leans forward in Nick’s chair. “Not once did you think to yourself that you could do a better job than McDonough? _Really?_ ”

Ellie stares at Jack with an unwavering intensity, her one hand curling under the overhang of the desk and Nick wonders if the kid hasn’t tapped into some secret desire here -would be just like him, to see something no one else had. “Anyone would be better,” she replies after a moment, “Hell, his brother _John_ would be better.”

“Hancock’s already got a town to run and there aren’t enough ruffians and outcasts in this place for him anyways. Come on, Ellie, stop beatin’ ‘round the bush. You want this. I know you do.”

“I—I can’t,” she says after a moment, “I already have a job and I can’t just—”

“What?” Nick interrupts with a smile. “Tell the old man to find someone else? That’s exactly what you’re gonna do.”

“Nick!” Ellie exclaims at the same moment Jack starts laughing, somewhat ruining the effect of her affront.

“I’m serious, Ellie. You should do this, and if the only thing holdin’ you back from sayin’ yes is me, then know that I’m perfectly capable of findin’ someone else to take over your job. Granted, they probably won’t be as good as you, but it isn’t your job to run herd on me for the rest of your days.”

The kid starts whistling a few bars of a catchy band number just then and it twigs notions of familiarity in Nick’s hard drive. He can’t put a name it, but it’s probably either incredibly appropriate or inappropriate, depending on what exactly made Jack think of it. Ellie looks between the two of them again, a serious expression on her face.

“…I need to think on this,” she says at last and Nick and Jack nod because of course, but Nick doesn’t doubt she’ll wake up tomorrow and have decided to give it shot. 

“Well, I’m gonna go check on Magpie -brought her a gift from Callie,” Jack says and stands. “And I suppose I should see how Harkness is doin’, or what he plans on doin’ tomorrow.” He gives Ellie’s arm a squeeze as he goes by. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

They both stare at the door for a moment after it clicks closed, then, Ellie hops down from her desk. “And I should pack a few things before I leave.”

Nick frowns at her. “Leave?”

“Yeah. Francine’s got an extra bed and I’d like to bake a few things for Deacon’s group for the road tomorrow. She won’t mind either as long as I help her with her morning bake,” Ellie says as she rounds the corner into the back. Nick stands and follows her. “I would’ve asked Piper, but she’s kinda busy tonight.”

“I meant that I don’t understand why you have to leave,” Nick says, leaning against the far cinderblock to watch Ellie putter around in her loft.

She shoots him a disbelieving look that says _‘Really?’_ Nick clears his throat and looks away, but Ellie doesn’t let him get away so easily. “How many times did you just grab a couple case files and head out to the Dugout, or wherever, for me and Tom? It’s about time I return the favour.”

“Don’t know what you think is gonna happen, Ellie.”

“Well, it’s really none of my business, is it? But this is his last night in town, and the two of you should spend it together. _Alone._ ” She packs some clothes in the messenger bag Deacon borrowed for their excursion. “Even if all you do is talk, or cuddle, or play cards, you should do it without having to worry about me.” Ellie tosses her toiletries on top and then slings the bag over her shoulder. “Lord knows when he’ll be back in town again, so you should make the most of this opportunity.”

Nick is certain that had he still the capability, he’d be blushing right now. Ellie descends the stairs and stops right in front of him. He looks at her from under the brim of his hat and considers the woman who is unquestionably his greatest friend in this life. In _either_ life. She gives him a smile and pulls him into a hug. 

“You know that I’m _so,_ so happy for you, right?” Ellie asks from where her head in pressed into his chest, her voice wavering slightly like she’s fighting back tears and Nick wraps his arms around her. “Just in case you weren’t clear from the bouncing around and cheering that happened earlier.” 

Nick chuckles. “Yeah, I think I got it.”

“Good. Well, then—” Ellie pulls back, eyes shining, “—I’ll be going.” She heads back out into the main office area, Nick following behind her. When she gets to the door, she stops as her hand turns the handle and pulls out a small jar, tossing it at Nick, who snatches it out of the air. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she tells him with a grin and is gone. 

_Right. And what exactly would that be?_ he thinks with no little sarcasm and turns the jar in his hands. Oh. It’s a tub of petroleum jelly. Nick’s coolant pump speeds up slightly and he feels like there is entirely too much pressure for this evening. He shoves the jar in his coat pocket with a frown. After walking all day, the kid will probably just want to sleep, anyways. Nick sighs to himself and heads to his desk, grabbing the notes on the new case that came in while he was gone. Might as well do something productive while he waits for Jack to return. 

By the time the kid gets back (a little over an hour and two cigarettes later), Nick has drummed out a basic plan of attack in regards to the case. It sounds like the usual disappearance to Goodneighbour, but he’s learned over the years to never take a case at face value. He’ll talk to the man tomorrow about his brother and then head down to Goodneighbour to see about finding the brother’s trail. Jack slips inside the agency, pulling his sunglasses off as he goes, and hops on Nick’s desk, boots ringing against the metal as he gives Nick a wide grin. 

“Go well?” Nick asks, not entirely sure if the grin is for him or for something the kid did.

“Come morning, I figure Magpie will be _way_ better, and capable of makin’ the journey back to our hideout.”

“And Harkness?”

Jack shrugs, grin faltering slightly. “I don’t know. I made a few suggestions and Magpie seemed to work her magic on him, but he’s not exactly Mr. Chatty and that goes double when talkin’ to me.”

Nick looks at Jack for a moment, trying to decide if he should get into what is probably a painful conversation for the kid about his history with Harkness or if he should just let it go for now. He decides to see how receptive Jack is about talking about it before he presses for an in-depth conversation.

“Can’t really blame him if what you said is true.”

“Oh, it’s true alright,” Jack says with a serious tone, peering closely at Nick. The kid’s got him figured out.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really, no.” Jack sighs and scrubs his face, suddenly looking very tired. “It’s far from my finest moment (so far in fact that the two can’t even see one another) and if at all possible, I’d rather not discuss it outside havin’ to relive it every time I look at Harkness.”

“Alright,” Nick acquiesces. One of these days, Jack will tell him about it and Nick can wait until then.

“Look, I also meant it when I said he was only one I ever sent back to the Institute. I wouldn’t do what I do if I hadn’t come to realize that what I did was despicable.” The kid seems to be trying to convince Nice of something he already knew: that Jack would never do that to him.

Nick puts a hand on the kid’s knee, stroking it slightly. “I know,” he says, speaking to the unspoken words and Jack lets out a shaky breath.

“There’s something I wanted to mention about Harkness.”

“Oh?” Jack tilts his head.

“It might be different now, you’ve changed him somehow—”

“Yeah…a specialized recall code. He’s probably one of a kind in that regard.”

Nick nods. “Okay, so this might not still be true, but I questioned him about Institute activities, like why they were interested in you and he volunteered more information that I thought he would.”

“Such as?”

“Like how you’re Capital Wasteland Priority Target: Alpha—” Jack winces. “—John, son of James, and how they’re watching the Brotherhood, and Railroad routes into the Capital.”

“He just…told you that?” and Nick nods. Jack sighs. “Great. Is he gonna go around tellin’ everybody that? Jesus. What the point of havin’ a code name?” Jack mutters to himself. “The bit about the Brotherhood is interesting, though, and the thing about routes might be useful if we knew which ones they knew about.”

“Think he might tell you?”

“That depends on whether or not he can and whether or not he wants to stick around with us Railroad flunkies. I have no idea what he plans to do,” and Nick hums in understanding. “So, where’s Ellie?” the kid asks after a moment of silence. 

“Went to spend the night at Francine’s place. Plans on bakin’ some goodies for you to take tomorrow.”

Jack immediately lights up. “Oo! Like sweet rolls?” then his brow furrows. “Wait…she’s not comin’ back?”

Nick shakes his head.

“Oh. So…”

“Yeah.”

Jack flushes and the extra redness seems to make his mild sunburn glow. It’s frankly adorable. “She figured that she’d be third wheelin’ it here tonight, hmm?”

“Somethin’ like that. Though, she did suggest cards as an alternative.”

Jack laughs, red still staining his cheeks. “To what? What does Ellie suppose we might get up to all alone?”

“She implied a lot but didn’t actually hazard a guess. I figure a large portion of it has to involve sleepin’, though. After the trek today, and the one you’ve got tomorrow, you’re gonna need all you can get.”

“Well, it is true that I only really sleep soundly here and at HQ, so one last good night’s rest before I head back into the fray is probably a good idea.” The kid leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and letting his hands support his jaw. “You could probably help with that.”

Nick gives him a smirk, but says in a voice expressing mock consideration, “Ya think so?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jack says. “Though, you did say once that you weren’t interested in _that_ with only a half of me, so the least you can do is lull this half to sleep with your presence.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Nick replies, tapping his chin. “Got some work to do and-”

“No you don’t!” the kid interrupts with a laugh. “Whatever work you had, you’ve already figured out what you need to do.”

Nick drops his smile for a moment and stands, stepping close to Jack. “That day was not appropriate for a buncha different reasons, not the least of which being your mental state. The same might be said of today. Seems like every time I see you, kid, you’re hurting in one way or another and for all your smiles and jokes, I know her death still weighs heavy on you—” Nick’s head tilts toward the filing cabinet where Olivia’s urn is sitting, “—As does Harkness, and Magpie and Indy, and every other agent currently under your watchful eye.”

Jack looks away but his mask of joviality falls from his face and Nick can see how much it is hurting him, how heavily it all weighs. “If we wait for me to be in an okay mental place, it might never happen. I don’t even know what that looks like anymore.”

Nick cups Jack’s face with both hands, using the sensory information from the left to judge the pressure of the right. “I figured it was obvious by now that I love your brain and heart, not necessarily the package they come in —seriously, what is this? Face number three?—” that earns him a half-laugh, “—If this is all we ever are, kid, I’ll spend the rest of my days thankin’ my lucky stars.”

Jack’s eyes flick to his and a smile blooms on his face. “As romantic declarations go, Nick, that was top notch.”

“I do try.”

The kid’s arms move to grip Nick’s forearms. “And if I want to?” he asks voice low, flushing again and Nick stills. “Even though I haven’t met your conditions? Even though I run from my past, frequently ignore the things I can’t deal with, regularly lie about everything and anything, whistle annoying band tunes, and am an all ‘round—”

There’s really only one reliable way to silence the kid with any kind of success (because if he’s about to say what Nick thinks, he might have to brain himself on the nearest surface in frustration): he kisses Jack. The effect of it is immediate like the kid’s been waiting all along for Nick to do just that, his mouth opens eagerly under Nick’s and Jack pulls him closer, spreading his legs so there’s room for Nick to be as close as possible. 

Nick doesn’t have a sense of taste anymore, the scientists at the Institute, the ones that poked and prodded him in that tiny room for years on end, never thought it was something a synth like him might need. After all, what use would something like him need to taste? It wasn’t as if he needed to eat or drink, and without that, what purpose would such a thing serve? For the most part, Nick doesn’t even mind, he never cared for the acrid taste cigarettes left in his mouth (sometimes he can still taste it after he’s smoked one, but that’s a residual memory rather than an actual sensation), and since he doesn’t need sustenance it seemed like a waste of processing power. Plus, he’s got the other four senses to get by on, tuned to a higher degree of functionality than any human. 

Of course, he didn’t expect to find anyone to kiss on a semi-regular basis and clearly neither did the Institute. Not that he thinks they would be so kind as to bestow such a sensation on a lowly Gen 2 prototype like him. Still, Nick resents its loss now. Then again, if he’d never ended up like this he wouldn’t have met Jack to begin with, so he supposes its loss is acceptable in the face of that. And even if he can’t taste Jack, he can feel the pressure of Jack’s mouth against his, the heat of it, how it’s slowly climbing above 98.6˚F; he can hear the kid’s quickening pulse and see his capillaries flush with blood. All these things fill Nick with a heady rush of power, he’s the one doing this, _causing_ this, and a choked moan gets caught in the back of his throat. 

Then, as if Jack can feel the scrutiny, he opens his eyes and pulls back slightly, sucking in greedy gasps of air. “Like what you see?” he asks, somehow managing to sound smug while being breathless, and yeah, he could definitely feel Nick looking at him.

Nick gives a one-shouldered shrug, not half as unaffected as he seems, and says, “This face isn’t so bad,” even as he thinks _I like your real one better._ No need to crush the mood with that statement, though.

The kid huff out a breath of laughter. “I’ll take that under advisement.” Then he slides from the desk, planning his feet on either side of Nick and forcing him to take a step back. As Jack’s body is pressed against him, Nick sets a steadying hand on the kid’s waist to keep him from pitching too far forward. Suddenly, the small jar Ellie tossed him is held up before his eyes as Jack leans back a bit, a wicked grin on his face. How did he-? Nick didn’t even feel him going for his pocket. “So, you were just makin’ flowery speeches to lure me into bed, detective?”

Nick looks between Jack and the jar, wondering if he should say that Ellie gave it to him and he shoved it in his pocket in a moment of embarrassment but then decides to try and play the kid’s game. “Is it workin’?” he asks, dipping his head to nose along the length of Jack’s neck and he can feel the kid’s pulse ratchet up again. He chuckles lowly. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

“Didn’t I already say that your brain was sexy?” the kid says as he tilts his head for greater access. Nick pauses to feel the vibrations of his vocal cords. “You gonna keep makin’ me repeat myself?”

Nick moves to murmur in his ear, thinking about making Jack say his name again and again, “Yes.” His thoughts must bleed into his voice because Jack inhales sharply, pulse stuttering and Nick can suddenly smell the tang of his arousal as he moves to place a thumb over the jumping artery. 

“You’d better make good on that,” the kid breathes, pulling his hand down and away from his neck -that’s the second time, Nick notes. “Like, _now._ ” 

Nodding, Nick steps back, to allow Jack space to move and suddenly it’s a mad dash for the bed, Jack slipping around him to take the lead, an excited sort of laugh slipping free as he does, but Nick catches him around the waist in the short hall between the main office and the back, and spins him to kiss him senseless, the kid smiling all the while. Then, Nick steps back to shed his coat (hat long discarded at his desk) and Jack slips away again, further into the private area to sit on the bed and unlace his boots. Nick pauses a moment to watch him, wondering at the domesticity that could be. Jack’s vest and various belts were shed the moment he arrived back at the agency and are currently hanging on Nick’s coat rack in the corner. He could almost pretend—

The sound of the kid’s boots hitting the floor brings Nick back, and Jack rises, untucking his dress shirt. Nick tosses his coat on the rack and moves to stand in front of him, pulling his tie off as he goes. Jack’s hands pause, shooting Nick a questioning look. “Do you want to…?” he asks and lets go of the button he’s working on.

Nick gives it a moment's consideration, then shakes his head. “No. Seen too many other’s undress you while unconscious for one injury or another. Rather watch you do it for me.” The kid flushes that glowing red again and licks his lips, taking up the discarded button again. Nick watches a few buttons slip free, then Jack pulls the shirt up and over his head, leaving his undershirt on display, and that flush trailing down his neck and across the expanse of his chest, that’s visible, to his shoulders —his buckshot and knife scars a stark white against the red. Nick swallows at the sight of it, a completely unnecessary action, but a remembered reflex that he can’t quite get rid of.

The kid pulls his undershirt free as well and pauses again, arms poised to lift it. “What? No tit for tat?” and Nick hesitates. He’s never been especially comfortable undressing, too afraid that he might be reduced to a mindless machine in the eyes of others without the protection of them. (Even when he was the town’s handyman he wore a jumpsuit so it was harder to dehumanize him for looking nothing like them.) Rationally, he knows that Jack isn’t like that, that they wouldn’t be doing _this_ if he was, but…

But—

Jack watches him for a moment and then drops his arms. He steps closer, laying his hands on Nick’s chest with one stroking along the edge of his open shirt, knuckles brushing against his synthetic skin. “Howa ‘bout shirt and shoes?” he suggests. “You can keep your pants. _This_ time.” and Nick relaxes, tension bleeding out as quickly as it came. He leans in to kiss Jack again, slow and purposeful, a thank you for his understanding, and as he does, the kid moves to work on his shirt’s buttons. Popping them free as Nick brings his good hand up to cup Jack’s jaw. 

When he makes it to the bottom, Jack breaks free of their kiss to concentrate on the couple at the end that are eluding him, then pushes the shirt off Nick’s shoulders. The kid looks at where it landed and then flashes Nick a grin, sinking to his knees. Nick clenches his hands and lets out a wheezing sound like someone socked him in the gut. Jack starts on the laces of his shoes, forehead resting against Nick’s thigh and even though Nick’s _well-aware_ he doesn’t have a cock anymore he can’t help the sensation of arousal that sparks through his system, flinging itself across his sensory mesh, at the sight of Jack on his knees for him. Another one of those reflexive sensations that are still kicking around on his hard drive.

Jack taps his feet as he gets the shoes unlaced and Nick toes out of them, one hand on the kid’s shoulder to steady himself. Then Jack rises and finishes pulling off his undershirt, sending it to join his dress shirt on the ground. Now the freckles that are splattered in random patterns around his shoulders and chest are fully visible, trailing down his arms to cluster heavily on his forearms where the skin spends the most amount of time in the sun, the ginger coloured hair on his chest gives way to sun-bleached blonde on his arms, and is that a tattoo?

Jack moves to unbuckle his belt, but pauses and looks at Nick, more black in his eyes than blue. “Would you?” he asks and Nick nods, not trusting his voice. He begins where the kid left off, listening to the rabbiting of Jack’s heart. “‘Member that first time you saw me high on Med-X?” the kid asks, words strained, head tilted up to gaze at the ceiling and Nick admires the lines of his throat. “And I couldn’t do this for myself without brainin’ myself on the stairs?” Nick can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes. Yeah, he remembers it pretty well. “I wanted you then.” Nick’s hands still on the jean’s button and Jack shifts to look at him, his eyes shining with intensity and only a silver of blue left in them. “I wanted you to do this then.”

Nick stares at him for a moment, not entirely sure how to make the tumbling thoughts skipping through his processors communicate with his vocal output. Then, he pulls Jack into a rough kiss— screw words. He fumbles for the button on the kid’s jeans, torn between trying to get him out of his clothes and wanting to pull him as close as possible. Jack’s not making the decision all that easy either, making whining noises that Nick wants to devour while also wanting force more out of him by dragging his knuckles across Jack’s tight zipper.

Somehow, they make it to the bed. There’s a bit of tripping when Jack’s legs tangle his pants and then laughing as they stumble and hit the mattress, the bed groaning under them. Nick pulls his jeans off the rest of the way, discarding them without a second thought along with Jack’s underwear. The flush is back again and Nick watches as it stains its way across Jack’s chest and shoulders, making his freckles seem even darker against the red, and the lingering scent of arousal that’s been hanging in the air since they started this, spikes sharply. For all his apparent embarrassment at being looked at like this, Jack clearly enjoys it more than not. Nick shouldn’t be surprised, he’s a show-off at heart. 

“Make some space, kid,” Nick rumbles, tapping the side of Jack’s leg. Jack moves further up the bed, positioning himself better, letting one leg rest over the side while the other falls open, obscenely wide. Nick sucks in a sharp breath at the sight of it, at the picture it makes, and almost puts a hand into his chest in a futile effort to calm his coolant pump. _Jesus._ Jack just looks at him with lidded eyes, radiating smug. Nick manages to collect himself enough to side into the open space, curling one leg under himself and setting the other one next to Jack’s off the side of the bed. 

As his thoughts collect themselves, Nick starts to notice the various scars that litter Jack’s body. There are a few he knows personally, a few Jack talked about before, but there many he didn’t know about. Nick carefully skims his skeletal hand up the length of Jack’s left thigh, fingers skipping over small jagged scars along the outside of it. “Frag shrapnel,” the kid says before Nick can ask, still watching him with those lidded eyes. He notes a small bullet exit scar on the inside of Jack’s right thigh, nearly at his knee. “Raider,” he says when Nick touches it. 

“Plasma rifle,” Nick comments as he brushes the ugly scar on Jack’s hip, letting his hand graze the length of Jack’s hard cock as it crosses his body. He get’s another one of those delicious whines in return. 

“Yeah—” Jack pants after a moment. There’s another bullet scar to the left of Jack’s belly button and Nick feels a wave of anger wash over him as he touches it; it would have been a life-threating shot. “Slaver tried to teach me a lesson,” the kid tells him, “clearly didn’t work.” He flashes a feral grin and Nick laughs, easing the anger away. He’s here, he’s still _here._

He moves up higher, tracing the ugly yellowing bruise around Jack’s ribs, still slightly purple in the center. The kid doesn’t jump when Nick touches the area, so it's probably mostly healed, but a stim never effectively takes the pooled blood away without multiple treatments and once the injury is healed satisfactory, why bother? Still, it’s not a pleasant thing to look at. Instead of lingering there, Nick moves his hand up to settle in the middle of Jack’s chest so he can feel its rapid beating. 

“Because of you,” the kid says, voice barely more than a whisper, and places his hand over Nick’s, “ _For you._ ”

Nick has to bow his head as an onslaught of emotions swell within him. The image of that vibrant cloth heart resting in his hand comes to him then, and he thinks about the piece of the kid that he met in Memory Lounger, the piece that gave him that heart. Nick looks at Jack then and knows that for this moment at least, there is no ‘Deacon’ and no pieces. 

“Jack,” Nick chokes out, voice caught between speech and a moan. The kid’s lids lower further, but for once it isn’t in anger or annoyance, but rather pleasure. Nick says his name again, rougher this time, full of promise and Jack lets out a hedonic sigh eyes falling fully closed as if he’s luxuriating in the sound of it. Nick watches his face, the working of his throat, the way his hand tightens on Nick’s. 

Then suddenly, the small jar from before appears before his face. Seriously, what is the kid, Houdini? Where the hell did he pull that from? When he looks past the jar, Nick finds Jack silently laughing at him -his surprise must have been evident. As he takes the jar from the kid’s outstretched hand, Jack says, “Slow, yeah?” he lets out a huff of air, “It’s been a while.”

And _Christ._ Nick is more certain than ever, that Jack is going to be the death of him. “That, I can do.” 

His hands are strangely steady as he cracks the lid and scoops a large glob of the jelly out, twisting the lid back on before setting it down. Nick wipes it off on Jack’s thigh and the kid raises a single eyebrow but doesn’t comment so Nick decides not to explain. Then, he gently lifts Jack’s balls with his metal hand, using the sensory pressure of the other hand lightly pressing into Jack’s thigh as a guide and watching his face. Jack shivers slightly but makes no other movement. When they’re high enough, Nick drags the knuckles of his left hand along Jack’s perineum with firm, steady pressure. 

The effect is immediate. Jack lets out a breathy, surprised, “ _Oh—_ ” and goes completely lax. Every muscle in his body suddenly liquid. Nick slowly strokes up and down, observing the way Jack’s breathing evens out, the way he licks his lips and swallows, and listening to his heart rate slowing. When there’s not a single ounce of tension left in his body, Nick eases off and stops. Jack peels his eyes open and looks at him, “Nick,” he says in a relaxed rumble, voice low and thick. 

“Not done yet,” Nick says with a smirk even as the sound of Jack’s voice sends another electric spark across his sensory mesh, settling itself in a hum along the strip of his back where Jack touched it all those months ago. Nick swipes a finger through the jelly on Jack’s thigh, settling his metal hand along the kid’s damaged hip, figuring the scar tissue will help protect against an involuntary tightening of his hand, but he’ll have to be careful. 

Nick presses the pad of his finger against that tight ring of muscle, circling it slowly, feeling the ridges of it slide easily by. Jack makes a choked noise and the muscles in his legs tighten briefly before they deliberately loosen, like he’s trying to hold on to that relaxed feeling from before. Nick strokes along the mess of the scar, comforting, as he plays with Jack’s hole, hardly dipping in before pulling out again. He watches as Jack’s hands open and close like he can’t decide what to do with them as his mouth drops open in a silent, round ‘oh’. It’s gorgeous— he’s gorgeous.

He presses in further, slow, so slow, and Jack pants out a whine. “Nick—oh, oh…”

“I know,” Nick murmurs, every sound Jack makes sizzling along his mesh and coming to rest along that strip on his back until it starts to feel hot and overtaxed by the constant stimulation. Nick has to close his eyes for a moment and suck in a deep breath of cooling air, his insides suddenly far too warm. It’s wonder he hasn’t gotten a warning about the temperature of his fusion core. 

When he bumps into Jack’s prostate, searching, seeking as he presses deeper, Jack shudders and clenches around him, a moan spilling over his lips as he claws at the edge of the bed. Nick circles and plays with it, panting desperately, gulping down cool air, as he watches Jack fall apart. The salty scent of sweat rising from Jack’s body, as it begins to bead along his stomach and in the hollows of his collar bone. His cock flushed a brilliant red as it bobs against his belly, leaving a trail of wet where it touches. The soft little “oh, _oh…_ ” he keeps chanting. 

Nick carefully pulls out, swipes up some more jelly, and before Jack has the chance to make a noise of protest, he slowly starts pushing in two fingers, gently teasing and pressing until Jack yields to them with another one of those delicious whines. This time, he shallowly fucks his fingers in further, moving deeper with each thrust, slowly and so meticulous —and then noticing this his right hand is making indentations that are a little too deep on Jack’s hip he loosens his grip. Suddenly, Jack’s hand closes over his, disrupting the delicate electrical charge that runs through his frame and making it jump and arc across the moisture of Jack’s skin. It's almost as if he can _taste_ it, taste the electrons in the salty sweat passing the current on and raising the hairs on Jack’s arm, and though Nick can’t tell through touch, the white knuckles of his hand speak to how tight his grip is. 

Then Nick presses against Jack’s prostate again, thrusting in longer strokes now that he’s looser around Nick’s fingers, and Jack writhes, pressing back against Nick’s thrusts, fisting the bed sheets, breath stuttering and gasping like he’s forgotten that he _needs_ to breathe and then is rudely reminded every time his lungs burn for air. “Nick,” he gasps and Nick thrusts harder, hitting that sweet spot, “ _Nick,_ ” he sobs, “right there. Oh. Please-please—” and Nick slows and then withdraws. Jack whimpers, equal amounts of displeasure and need, “Nick—”

“Shhh,” Nick tells him, swiping the last of the jelly from Jack’s thigh. “Need you to do somethin’ for me.” The low buzz of his vocal processor is foreign to him, Nick’s not sure he’s ever heard it sound like that before. He rolls his shoulders slightly, feeling the hum of electricity along his back echo the buzz in his voice. 

Jack’s eyes open to look at him, wet around the edges, lashes heavy with moisture, and utterly black. There’s an audible click in the throat as he swallows. “What?” he asks voice thick.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Jack blinks at him like it takes a moment for the words to filter through to his brain. “Okay.” Then, his hand uncurls from the bed sheets and he fumbles for the small jar than Nick discarded. It’s fallen to the low point of the bed, resting next to Jack’s hip and warmed from the heat of his body -hovering right about 100˚F. He picks it up, and then uncurls his hand from Nick’s, disrupting the electric flow they had established and Nick let’s out a dissatisfied noise somewhere between a low moan and sigh. Jack watches him for a moment, hesitating and looking like he’s about to put off opening the jar so Nick shakes his head. 

“Don’t,” he says, licking the inside of his teeth, already missing the sensation, the almost-taste of the salt electrons carrying electricity and looping back to travel along his frame. “Just— just, put your hand back after,” and Jack nods. 

It takes only a moment for Jack to get a glob of the jelly for himself, then he’s threading the lid again and before he has the chance to put his hand on his cock, Nick slowly starts nudging three fingers in him. Jack lets out a shuddering moan and his hands clenching momentarily as he rises off the bed slightly, muscles straining against the skin of his thighs, and Nick slides in further, spreading and stretching and Jack just pants above him, heart galloping. 

“Jack,” Nick says, “Touch yourself. Touch _me._ ” The words are nearly a demand and would have been if Nick hadn’t stuttered a little on them, desperate, marvelling at this, at _him._

Jack gives Nick a jerky nod and grips Nick’s metal hand again and then the sharp tang of the electricity is back in his mouth, stronger than ever. Jack wraps a shaking hand around his cock, jelly caught between his fingers from when he clenched his hands, and starts pumping, unsteadily at first, but with increasing purpose as Nick slides all the way in, slick heat around him, and starts thrusting against that sweet spot. 

Jack is muttering words that Nick can’t quite catch, low and indistinct to even his ears, unable to be distinguished from the sound of Jack’s beating heart and his faltering breath. He knows Jack is close, a dozen minute signs spread across skin and muscles, and Nick thrusts harder once, then stilling and Jack gives a choking cry. 

“Jack, look at me,” Nick says, voice raspy and weak. It’s hard to make his processor obey his commands right now, too focused on trying to interpret sensation crawling along his back and humming through his frame, trying to process the data as fast as it can, trying not to be overwhelmed by it, but he _needs_ to be Jack’s focus right now. “ _Jack._ ”

Jack’s eyes snap to him, stroking stuttering to a stopping, hand tightening on his, _‘I’m here,’_ it says and Nick thrusts against, shallow and quick, watching the round shape of Jack’s mouth as his eyes flutter but don’t close, how the red flush of his skin has crawled all the way down to his belly, the jumping muscles in his lean legs and arms. 

“You’re beautiful,” Nick gasps; he’s thought it enough times and he should say it aloud at least once if only to appease the kid’s vanity and Jack makes a soft, wet noise.

“ _Nick,_ ” he says, barely more than a sound, and then—

His whole body tenses, going stiff, eyes falling completely closed, head back, neck straining, skin stretched tight over the hollows, as he comes in slick pulses all over his belly. Jack’s mouth falls open, soft and so red, and Nick wants to kiss him. 

He withdraws slowly, Jack’s hole fluttering in his absence. Nick rises and shifts, pulling his one hand free of Jack to brace his weight and grabbing the towel on the headboard with the other, yanking it down and to the side, using it to clean them both, Jack huffing when Nick brushes against his hypersensitive cock, before tossing it to the floor. Then, settling over Jack, elbows holding him slightly above him, Nick kisses him. First, around the edges of his mouth, the stubble of his growing beard rasping against Nick’s cheeks, then, as Jack returns to himself and responds, fully on his lips. 

It's lazy and wet, Jack’s warm breath puffing across Nick’s cheeks every time he pulls back, and Nick wants _so much_ to taste him. He wants to know more than just the sensation of wet and heat. Then Jack raises his arm and threads his fingers through Nick’s metal ones, completing that circuit again and Nick groans, bowing his head into the crook of Jack’s neck. It’s not as strong anymore, the sweat mostly rubbed off on the bed sheets, but it’s enough of a taste of what was. 

Jack presses a few kisses against his cheek, his other hand curling around Nick’s neck. “Thought you couldn’t feel with that hand,” he says, voice relaxed and liquid in Nick’s ear.

“Can’t,” Nick puffs with an aborted shake of his head. “It’s not—” he cuts himself off, he just doesn’t have the processing power to explain properly right now. 

“After. Tell me after,” Jack murmurs, hand sliding down from Nick’s neck to his chest, one leg wrapping around Nick’s to pull him closer. Jack’s hand slides along the seam of Nick’s chest panel and around to the side and _oh._ Nick can’t help the shaky moan that escapes his mouth at the anticipation of Jack touching his sensor mesh again. He can feel the curve of Jack’s smile against his face as he finds the circular depression and presses it, causing Nick’s synthetic skin on his left side to harden and pop away from the mesh. Gravity pulls the chest piece down, letting it hang at it the latch’s zenith, and Jack’s fingers slip inside the gap, gliding along the mesh in a single, fluid stroke. 

Nick chokes and squirms, a panting sort of whine forcing it way out when Jack does it a second time. The sensation zips across the mesh, electric and charged, spreading from Jack’s fingers across the whole thing until there’s white static appearing at the edges of his vision and a humming drone in his ears. Jack’s fingers wiggle in further through the gap, dancing erratically across the mesh in an attempt to get deeper, and Nick can’t— there’s just too much to process, it’s overloading his CPU. He can feel it shorting and stuttering, vainly trying to sort the rush of data and failing when another twist of Jack’s fingers sends a fresh cascade of numbers screaming at it until there’s nothing but static and humming and—

\- - - - -

Nick’s whole body seizes up, going rigid, and the panting breaths that were hot on Deacon’s neck stop suddenly. He withdraws his fingers from Nick’s sensor mesh, listening. He can’t hear the rapid tick of his coolant pump, only the distant hum of Nick’s fusion core and Deacon panics. _Shit._ Is he okay? Did he maybe take the whole ‘touching the raw sensor input’ thing a bit too far? Deacon pushes the chest panel up, clicking it back into place to protect the mesh, and then does the same thing with Nick’s back panel. 

After a tense moment of holding his breath, the panels reseal on their own and Deacon hears Nick’s coolant pump whir back to life. He wraps an arm around Nick’s back and breathes out a sigh of relief. Nick lets out a wheezing groan, all animation returning to him a great rush. “Christ,” he mutters, voice raw. “Never had a hard restart like _that_ before,” and suddenly Deacon is laughing because he’s just so ridiculously happy and for one dreadful moment he thought he’d fucked it up, but he didn’t and the sheer relief of that… 

Nick shifts to look at him, moving some of his weight off Deacon, and before he gets a chance to say anything like “why are you laughing?” or “what’s your problem?” Deacon kisses him fiercely, and Nick kisses him back, and that’s all they do for a time. 

A while later they shift so that Nick is lying on his back, arm curled around Deacon where he’s pressed into Nick’s side, half under the bed’s covers to help stave off the chill he started to feel as his body temperature lowered. Deacon is feeling lazy and content in a way that he hasn’t in a long time, luxuriating in the sensation of Nick’s thumb stroking his arm. He wants to sleep, but there’s a niggling thought in the back of his brain that just won’t leave him alone. 

“I was so angry then,” Deacon says suddenly, quietly. He isn’t going to be able to sleep until he explains a bit why he chose to send Harkness back to the Institute. He doesn’t want to excuse it, there is no excuse, but maybe it’ll help Nick understand why he tries so hard not to get involved. Nick looks down at him, expression questioning. “I can’t even explain the _rage_ that consumed me. It was crushing and suffocating and it always felt like I was just a hair’s breadth from exploding. I hadn’t felt anything like it before.

“My dad had just died, after I’d spent two months looking for him and then a month trapped in that virtual hell with Braun—” Deacon’s hand clenches on Nick’s chest, voice wavering slightly and Nick pulls him closer. “I was struggling with the fact that my dad had essentially abandoned me twice and the trauma from being psychologically tortured…

“By the time I met one of the Railroad’s representatives in the Capital, I had just slaughtered my way through a slaver camp and I was looking for a little fuckin’ levity in my life.” Deacon sighs, wrung out and raw and explains that he took the job from Zimmer to look for his ‘lost property’ because it sounded like it might be more interesting than looking for a G.E.C.K.

“Victoria Watts runs the Railroad division in the Capital, but when I met her was just an agent with incredibly bad manners that frayed my already poor handle on my temper. Basically, I gave Harkness to Zimmer as a giant ‘fuck you’ to Watts because I was petty and stupid and had zero fucking impulse control.” He hates even saying the words, especially when Nick’s stroking stops and he stills under Deacon, but it’s the truth, the _God-awful truth._

Which is why he hardly even uses it anymore, that awful thing capable of inflicting more pain than a hundred lies.

“Regretted it almost immediately, but by then it was too late,” Deacon continues, voice bleak and distant. “I promised myself I wouldn’t let anger dictate my decisions again.” Of course, that lasted until his vault was slaughtered and then he lost it again. Only that time, it wasn’t just one man who suffered for it, but 21. “Not that I’ve had much success on that front.”

There’s a long moment of silence and Deacon thinks he’s completely destroyed the mood they’d managed to cultivate for themselves in the last half-hour. Then, Nick presses a kiss into his hair and murmurs, “Thank you for trustin’ me with that,” and Deacon feel surprise and then relief wash over him. He’d half expected Nick to chastise him for his past actions, even though he now regretted them so much. His relief morphs into something else, something deeper and more sorrowful and suddenly there are tears gathering in his eyes, his throat tightens, and he has to fight back the overwhelming urge to cry. 

Nick starts stroking his arm again, his other hand crossing to hold on to Deacon’s, the metal cool on his skin. “It’s okay,” Nick tells him, “Just let it out, kid,” and maybe Deacon had been waiting for someone to tell him that all along because the words are hardly out of Nick’s mouth before he breaks down and cries. 

There’s something so horribly vulnerable about crying, and it’s not necessarily being vulnerable around someone else. No. Deacon’s always found that for him it’s the vulnerability of having to admit to _himself_ that something or someone hurt him so bad or cut him so deep that all the anger or indifference or even revenge in the world isn’t going to fix that wound and he’s forgotten how to deal with pain any other way. 

He’s not sure how long it takes for him to quiet again, until the tears have dried and the skin on his face is tight in their absence. Nick doesn’t say anything, even after he’s stopped and that’s okay with Deacon, conversation isn’t something he’s feeling ready to deal with now, but Nick’s present and warm and it’s enough that Deacon knows that Nick cares for him, even after hearing that abbreviated tale (it seems obvious now that Deacon isn’t about to be rid of Nick, ever), so there’s nothing stopping him from sleeping now.

When he wakes the next morning, awareness coming to him lazily, slowly, and feeling blissfully satisfied, Deacon notes that they’ve shifted positions from where he fell asleep the night before. He must have been hot because he had moved away from Nick and sprawled on his belly, one arm hanging off the bed to touch the cool concrete floor, the other tucked under his chest and most of the covers shucked. The bed’s too small to get far from Nick, though and the left side of Deacon’s body is still pressed against his, Nick’s metal fingers idly ghosting over the claw marks on the back.

Deacon trades arms tucked under himself, wincing slightly as the one protests being unbent and shifts so that he’s facing Nick again without giving up his position. “Hey,” he rasps, throwing his arm over Nick’s side.

“Mornin’,” Nick replies with a small smile from where his one hand has his head propped up. Deacon snuggles closer, eyes closing again as he wonders if it’s possible to sleep just a little longer.

“Is it?” Deacon asks. “Be honest now, is Ellie going to come through that door soon or not? Can I sleep some more?”

Nick huffs a breath of laughter and shifts, worming his arm under Deacon’s body and moving then until Deacon is lying half on and half off Nick’s chest. “It’s a little after eight, Nick tells him when they’ve settled, “so you might have a bit of time.”

Deacon nods, cheek rasping against Nick’s shoulder as his eyes close, listening to the tick of Nick’s coolant pump and idly wishing to live in this moment forever. He’s almost asleep again when Nick’s metal hand stills on his arm where it had been stroking and then moves to draw the bed’s covers back over Deacon’s lower half. Deacon opens his eyes again, meaning to ask if Ellie is about to come in when the door to the agency bursts open and chaos tumbles inside.

“Dee? Deacon!” Magpie calls out, a very clear tone of panic highlighting her voice and Deacon is immediately alert, head rising.

“No, wait! Don’t—” Ellie says just as Magpie rounds the corner to the private area, Harkness hot on her heels. They both stop short when they realize they’ve interrupted, staring a moment before blushing and turning away, but neither of them moves out.

“What’s wrong?” Deacon asks, rising from the bed. He can’t imagine the two of them burst in here without something being very wrong. He starts looking for his clothes.

“A Courser just entered town,” Harkness replies, voice tight. Deacon and Nick both swear and Deacon doubles his efforts to get dressed.

“Is it lookin’ for you?” Deacon asks as he pulls his underwear on.

“Likely. Either that or whoever killed Dr. Zimmer.”

Deacon darts a quick look at Magpie’s back and she’s utterly rigid. He jumps into his jeans as Nick grabs their shirts from the floor.

“How _the hell_ are we gonna get outta town without it noticing us?” Magpie asks, voice a hiss.

“We’re not,” Deacon replies, pulling both his shirts on in quick succession. “We have to draw it out of town with us.”

“What?” she snaps and turns, momentarily forgetting to give him some privacy to dress. He’s practically there anyway so it doesn’t matter, quickly tucking his dress shirt into his jeans.

“We’ll have to be discrete of course, don’t want a firefight breaking out in the market, but we’re not leavin’ it in town. It came for us so it has to leave with us. Don’t need the Institute getting’ any more ideas about the kind of presence we have in town.”

Magpie is utterly furious, but she must understand that there’s too much at stake in Diamond City for them to just leave a Courser to poke around, or at least doesn’t want anything to happen to Nina because she doesn’t say anything further. 

Ellie peeks around Magpie and Harkness. “That’s incredibly dangerous,” she says. 

“My thoughts exactly,” Nick agrees, watching Deacon as he pulls his socks and then boots on.

“I know,” Deacon sighs and starts lacing. “I figured it was only a matter of time before The Institute got wise to Zimmer’s death. Didn’t think they’d actually set foot in town, though. I mean an undercover synth is one thing, but a Courser? No way disguise one of those. They scream ‘Institute might’.”

“That’s the point,” Harkness says, “and I agree. We must get him to follow us. Perhaps set an ambush. If he’s followed our trail this far, he knows too much.”

Deacon glances at Harkness, wondering if his choice of pronoun is meaningful. “Know ‘im?” Deacon asks, switching momentarily himself.

Harkness’ face is unreadable. “Yes.”

“And you’re okay with killin’ him?”

“The needs must.”

 _So, no,_ Deacon thinks, _but willing to, to stay free._ He gives Harkness an understanding nod and then heads for his gear. Before he can even ask Nick says, “I’ll fix Piper’s computer. And pay Sun his 90 caps.” Deacon opens his mouth to protest the last part but Nick holds up a hand. “You don’t have time to mess around with that, just focus on not dyin’.” Deacon closes his mouth and nods.

He grabs his holster off the rack, pulling it out from under Nick’s coat. “Is it alright if I leave Olivia in your care until I find her family?”

“Of course,” Ellie says and Nick indicates agreement. Deacon quickly moves to buckle his tool belt.

“And I’ll have to leave my radio dishes with you until I can swing by for them later.” Deacon says as he slides his vest on. 

Nick finishes buttoning his own shirt and stands, “I’ll drop them off for you. Have to leave town on a case anyways.”

Deacon shakes his head. “Don’t go outta your way for me.”

Nick crosses the room in a couple strides and bats Deacon’s hands away from where he’s buttoning his vest so Nick can do it instead. “If it was outta the way, I wouldn’t’ve offered.”

“Yes, you would’ve.”

“Shut up and let me help.”

Deacon huffs, but smile betrays his real feelings on the matter. “Fine,” he agrees and then the smile vanishes. “Please tell Piper I’m sorry. If I’d known…” he trails off. “Just— she’s probably gonna be a wreck when you go over there, so be prepared.”

“Whatda you mean?” Ellie immediately demands, pressing further into the room.

“He— They aren’t gonna work right now. Trust me,” and Ellie looks torn between staying here and rushing over to Publick to find out just exactly what Deacon means. “Go,” he tells her, “she needs you more than I do.” Ellie darts to his side, quickly pulls him into a hug (easily by passing Nick), and plants a kiss on his cheek, leaving her rainbow jackrad bag in his hands before rushing out the door. He takes a quick glance inside to make sure she wanted him to have it —it’s full of purified water and food— then he swings it over his head and settles it around his shoulders. 

Nick throws him a questioning look as Ellie leaves and Deacon gives him a sad half-shrug in answer as rolls his sleeves up with quick, precise movements. When he’s done, Nick pulls him into a kiss. It’s shorter than Deacon would’ve liked and harsh like Nick is telling him in no uncertain terms that he’d better come back to Diamond city and he’d better damn well be alive. Then they part, and Deacon gives him one last look before they’re out the door. 

In the street, Deacon pulls Harkness and Magpie close, keeping his voice a whisper so that the sounds of the opening market hide it. “We can’t walk out together. M, you go first taking Home Street to the exit, we’ll all meet at the Diamond City Bridge. There’s a bombed-out apartment on the east side of the street with a view of the bridge, you still got a stealth charge?—” she nods, “—Good. I’ll go down Second and up First two minutes after. H, you cross the market at the same time I go down Second. Try and catch his eye but act like you don’t want to be caught, yeah?” Harkness agrees without any protest and that alone speaks to the seriousness of the situation. Magpie sets off. “Chill in the alcove,” Deacon tells him, “I’ll get in position. He’s not likely to leave the market —it’s the best place to see you. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t know how many of us there are.”

“Not likely,” Harkness replies.

“Yeah, well we can dream, right?” Deacon replies with a grim smile and disappears down the street toward the farms. Not for the first time, Deacon wishes he had a pocket watch. Usually, he just counts in his head the seconds to pass minutes by, but every once and while he thinks it might be useful to know more precisely the time. Then he reminds himself that he’d probably never remember to wind the watch so it would be perpetually behind, which leads him to miss his Pip-Boy. Yeah, he spent way too much time staring at the screen and it’s a wonder he ever managed to survive considering that, but it was so _useful,_ with its time display and map and radiation read out. Oh well, no point in crying over spilt milk.

When he’s counted to 120, Deacon sets off down Second, passing by the Science! Center. As he rounds the corner of First, Deacon slows his pace slightly, and shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to look as unaffected as possible. Hopefully, Sun is reading his morning paper, or staring out in the market and watching what he probably pegged as their Courser friend and not worrying about catching Deacon on his way out of town. He knows Sun is perfectly capable of being discrete, but he’s also capable of being really loud and pushy when the situation calls for it, like when someone is trying to renege on a bill —not that Deacon ever has— and he sometimes wonders which way Sun will swing.

In such cases, avoidance is best.

As he rounds the corner past Choice Cuts, the smell of cooking meat mixing with the yeasty smell of bread being baked, Deacon notes that Harkness is already at the top of the exit ramp. It took him longer to get to the exit than for Harkness and that’s what Deacon wanted. He spares the market one last look, checking his pockets and looking like he’s making sure he’s got everything after just spending the night at the Dugout Inn when he sees the Courser.

The thing materializes out of the morning market crowd, its black coat absorbing the sunlight, sunglasses reflecting it, and looking wholly out of place as it garners strange looks from the people it brushes by without pausing to spare an apology. There are a few mutterings behind it, but most people seem to feel the vibe the thing puts out —dangerous, don’t fuck with— its laser rifle banging against its back as it moves. When the Courser gets closer to Deacon and the exit ramp, he turns on his heel and stares back down the street toward the Dugout, frantically checking through his bag like he really has forgotten something, taking a few distracted steps as the Courser passes behind him, feeling like a cold winter breeze cooling the already hot morning. 

Deacon mutters to himself, “Oh, here it is,” and then starts back toward the exit, following in the Courser’s wake. When he exits the city’s walls, Deacon doesn’t see Harkness or Magpie. He heads over to Sammy, giving the statue its customary good luck pat, and boy does he need it today, before heading down Fen Street, now a bit behind the Courser, who didn’t stop for the Diamond City tradition. It must hear Harkness moving through the streets because there’s no hesitation in its movement nor uncertainty that Harkness is heading north. 

It takes a good five or so minutes to get past the walls of Diamond City, and out into the ruins of Boston proper, leaving all the signs of the city’s location and noisy turrets behind. The streets are quiet and traffic is non-existent this early. Give it an hour or so, people will start trailing into town from all the small settlements and family houses built within easy distance of the city. 

The Courser’s steps are impossibly quick for not actually breaking into a run, and Deacon has to increase his speed so the thing doesn’t completely outpace him. 

It’s a tense twenty minutes to the Charles River, Deacon whistling the best he can while watching the Courser movements ahead of him and trying not to burn a hole with his eyes in the back of the thing and draw undue attention to himself. Deacon knows the Courser knows he’s behind it, but he hopes he’s come off as a solitary traveller heading north to…er, Abernathy Farm maybe? There’s really not a hell of a lot north of Diamond City. He has to be prepared that the Courser knows he’s following it and not just randomly travelling in the same direction. 

At the partially raised bridge, the Courser stops next to a burnt-out car and looks around. Did it lose Harkness? Deacon comes to a stop about twenty feet from it and pulls out his plasma pistol, leaving the weapon pointed at the ground and hoping that without the immediate act of aggression that aiming the pistol at the Courser’s back signals, he’ll buy them a bit of time. Almost the same moment Deacon pulls his plasma pistol out, the Courser spins to face him, head cocking to one side. 

“Once again it appears our description of you is out of date,” it tells him, voice carrying easily down the street.

The Institute is keeping an ongoing tab on him? What in the hell…? Deacon flashes the Courser a grin. “I like to keep it interesting, and it’s good to know that my paranoia is totally founded. Do have any idea how many caps I just won?”

The Courser’s expression doesn’t change from its slightly annoyed look —as if the whole of the Commonwealth is a distasteful experience for it. “Did you kill Dr. Zimmer or the synth R14-5?”

“Uh, no to the first and yes to the second. Though to be honest, I shoulda killed Zimmer a long time ago.”

“I killed Zimmer,” Magpie says from where she shimmers into view in the doorway of the bombed-out apartment building, holding her 10mm pistol at the Courser’s back. It hardly acknowledges her save for a slight movement of its head. 

“Ah, I see,” it says after a moment. “A3-21 have you defected?”

Harkness appears from an alley slightly ahead of Deacon, his laser rifle held across his body; a warning. “Yes.”

The Courser sighs. “I had hoped to not have to kill you.”

“Then don’t,” Harkness says. “Tell the SRB that he—” Harkness jabs a thumb at Deacon, “—killed me. Wouldn’t be the first one he’s put down.”

The Courser gives Deacon a long look. “And I still scarcely believe it.”

Deacon almost laughs. This is so surreal…

“We underestimate them to our detriment.”

“Perhaps.”

There’s a long moment of silence and no one moves. Then Harkness says, “Did any of us ever like Dr. Zimmer?”

“That is irrelevant.”

“Is it? Were you never annoyed by his lack of respect for us? He thought of us as toys to play with and _break_ whenever it suited his fancy, instead of specialized agents of The Institute worthy of respect.”

The Courser stares at Harkness, considering his words. 

“I don’t want to kill you, either, X6-88 and Zimmer got what was coming to him; we all thought about doing at one time or another.” Harkness throws the Courser a smirk. “I bet voluntary psychological readjustment will drop dramatically in the next few months.”

There’s a twitch of something like a returned smirk in the corner of X6-88’s mouth before its expression returns to its default annoyed look and Jesus Christ, the whole of the Institute’s Coursers didn’t even like Zimmer? Whoa. Wrong group to piss off. “If I go back uninjured, I will have a hard time convincing them that you are dead. They will expect me to hunt down the Railroad agents responsible.”

“You did.” Harkness sweeps a hand to indicate Deacon and Magpie. “Will a few severe, but non-life threatening injuries suffice?”

The Courser considers again. “Yes,” it agrees after a moment and X6-88 rolls its shoulders in preparation. “You are understood that if we come across one another again, I will kill you.”

Harkness nods. “And I you.”

“Very well. Plasma injuries will suffice. It will confirm that I ran into him.” X6-88 looks at Deacon and behind his sunglasses Deacon’s eyes narrow even as he gives the Courser a smile. 

“Any particular areas?” Deacon asks, moving forward for greater accuracy and Harkness is careful to keep himself slightly ahead of Deacon. He doesn’t trust X6-88 to decide against getting shot and Deacon can’t say he trusts it himself. 

X6-88 raises an eyebrow, the edge of it visible above his reflective sunglasses. “Arm, to prevent me from wielding my weapon correctly. Perhaps a leg injury to slow my speed, and a one in the gut?”

“You could die from one in the gut,” Deacon says, aiming his plasma pistol.

“I will receive medical attention before then.”

“Alright. Your funeral, pal.” Deacon fires several shots at X6-88’s arm, the Courser’s coat absorbing a lot of the damage before the plasma dissolves enough of it to get to the thing’s flesh. The only outward sign of pain it gives when the plasma starts eating away at its skin is a downturn of its lips and a clenching of its jaw. 

Then he fires several into its thigh. X6-88’s hands clench, the one not quite curling properly due to the ongoing damage from the plasma, but it still hasn’t made a sound. Their pain tolerance levels are through the roof; any human would be a howling, sobbing mess by now. Deacon well remembers how much that secondary splash hurt, how it burnt like someone set his skin on fire. Deacon doesn’t take any pleasure in hurting this Courser. It’s one thing to kill one of them that’s actively trying to kill him, but the stoic way it's just standing there, letting him injure it as some sort of messed up payment for killing Zimmer is…wrong. 

Deacon lowers his plasma pistol, a grim look on his face. 

“You’re not finished,” Harkness says eyes still on X6-88.

“Yeah well, this isn’t exactly fun,” Deacon snaps and holsters his plasma pistol. He draws his knife. 

“It’s not supposed to be, but it was agreed.” 

“Two plasma shots are enough. That shit’s painful; more than any bullet.”

“I know,” Harkness replies, voice tight. 

“Well then, I’ll assume you don’t mind if I change things up a bit,” Deacon replies and throws his knife with as much force as he can muster. It hits X6-88 in the chest, to the right of its heart, and it staggers slightly with the impact. Deacon imagines if it wasn’t already injured, that wouldn’t have phased it in the slightest. Deacon approaches, “Hope you were right about the medical attention because your lung is gonna fill with blood now.” 

X6-88 plucks the knife from its chest and looks at it for a moment before handing it back to Deacon, hilt first. “I had forgotten how agonizing plasma is,” it says, voice wavering slightly in pain. Deacon figures that’s about as close as he’s going to be to a “Thank you for inflicting less pain on me even though I asked for it.”

Deacon flicks the blood off his knife and slides it back into its sheath. “Let’s not see each other around, X6.” 

“You can be assured I wish for the same thing.” X6-88 looks at Harkness. “You as well, A3-21.”

Harkness nods and then the two of them step around the Courser, Magpie is watching them with a scowl firmly etched into her features as she joins them. As they step onto the bridge deck, Deacon casts a look behind him and finds that X6-88 hasn’t moved from its spot. Blood from its arm and leg is starting to drip on pavement but it’s a still as a statue.

“He’ll live,” Harkness tells him. 

“Yeah, but how long will we?” Magpie asks, that anger from before simmering in her voice, and Deacon can’t help but wondering the same thing.

\- - - - -

An hour later they’ve made it to Cambridge proper and are just passing by the ruins of the C.I.T. campus. Magpie is starting to flag, her still healing wounds getting the best of her, even with the paste Deacon had Callie make for him during his short stop over at Ticonderoga. Deacon announces that they should break for some food and water and she gratefully collapses on the stairs leading to the west wing of the university.

Deacon passes out cans of purified water and then one each of Ellie’s wonderful sweet rolls, wrapped in wax paper and then in old newspaper. They eat in silence in the shade of the porch covering, the concrete pleasantly cool under them.

“So, you decided what you’re gonna do?” Deacon asks Harkness, crumpling the empty paper into a ball. Magpie watches Harkness, keenly interested in the answer.

Harkness considers him for a moment. “Why didn’t you try and kill X6-88?”

Deacon huffs. “Like I need the headache of tryin’ to kill another Courser. Besides, you and him had an agreement. Didn’t seem right to be the back-stabbin’ party.”

“Yeah well, it was fuckin’ stupid,” Magpie tells them. “Asshole’ll probably hunt us down next chance he gets.”

“Perhaps,” Harkness concedes, scrunching his own paper. “You and Mr. Valentine are…?”

Deacon’s eyes narrow behind his sunglasses. “Are what?” 

“Totally screwing each other,” Magpie supplies with a laugh, a blush rising on her cheeks. “Which is whatever, but also like super adorable. I mean it was obvious the moment I seen you two together that he had it _so bad_ for you, but…” she trails off and frowns a little. “Valentine is like the most well-known guy in the ‘Wealth, so you sure it’s a good idea?”

Deacon’s face mirrors hers, he hadn’t thought of it like that. “Maybe not? But, if the Institute knows anything about me, they should know that it’s not a good idea to mess with the people I love.”

Harkness nods once in acknowledgement and that confirms just how much the Institute seems to know about him. Do they keep this much of a tab on all potential recruits? 

Magpie coos, “Aw! You two are too cute. The Railroad agent and the synth, I feel like there’s a romance novel in there somewhere.”

Deacon gives her arm a shove, smiling and shaking his head. Then he looks at Harkness, “So, you gonna answer my question now or what?”

“…I thought I would do things differently this time,” Harkness says as he looks out into the street. “and join the Railroad.”

Magpie gives a holler of excitement. “I knew it, ya big lug. You couldn’t just walk away.”

Deacon gives Harkness a long look. “You do realize you’re gonna end up stuck with me for a while, right? I’m trainin’ the new agents.”

“And doing a marvellous job,” Magpie adds and Deacon shakes his head in disagreement. Not even close. “Don’t give me that,” she says, “you couldn’t predict that shit Zimmer nor that R14 would do that to Olivia. Fuck, we’re still alive ‘cause’a you.”

Harkness gives a sarcastic hum and replies to Deacon’s statement. “Yes, I know. Magpie told me that much.” 

Deacon shoots her a frown and she shrugs. “What? You said I should talk to him. There really hasn’t been much but… _business_ lately. What was I supposed to talk about?” and he sighs. What’s done is done.

“I’m still interested,” Harkness continues. “Though I understand that I’ll likely be…disbelieved at first.”

“Yeah, well it’s not every day a Courser defects. Plus, some of them might know you from… before and it’ll probably make for a tougher sell.”

Harkness gives him a hard look and Magpie glances between them, clearly understanding that she’s missed something. “Did you want me to lie about what happened?” 

“Honestly? Yes. Do I expect you to? No. Just do whatever you think is right. I’ll deal with the fallout.”

The look on Harkness’ face suggests that he didn’t expect that answer from Deacon but he nods in acceptance and finishes the rest of his purified water. 

“Do I get to hear about this or what?” Magpie asks.

Deacon shrugs and tosses their empty cans back in his bag. This one is out of his hands. Harkness looks at her and says, “Perhaps later. We should get moving again, provided you’re feeling better.”

She waves him off. “Yeah, yeah much better. Don’t baby me.”

It takes them another few hours to make it back to the Cambridge Police Station. As they approach, Deacon catches sight of a sentry on the roof of the building —good— that disappears the moment they’re in view. So, by the time they climb the precinct’s stairs and open the door, all the tourists are waiting for them, as well as a familiar face from Augusta. 

“Hey, Deacon, good to see you made it back, man,” Dutchman says and grasps Deacon’s hand in a hearty shake. 

Magpie slips by them and heads for Indy. Lacrimosa and Naughty Nancy are next to him, and Bullet joins them in short order. Mender moves to as well but pauses briefly on catching sight of Harkness. If it’s because Harkness is new or something else, Deacon can’t say for sure, but there’s something odd that flickers across his face before he turns a smile on Magpie that raises the hairs on the back of Deacon’s neck. Harkness hangs back, near Deacon’s shoulder. 

“Been a long time, Dutch. You avoidin’ me? I’ve been hangin’ out here all this time and you only come by when I’ve gone?”

“Well, someone had to do your job, Dee.”

Deacon grins. “Next time you take the run with the Institute boogeymen and I’ll stay home.”

Dutchman holds up his hands. “Without you or Glory around to kill one’a those things? No thanks. I’ll give you a few minutes with the troops, and then we need to talk, kay?”

Deacon nods and steps around Dutchman to join Magpie and the rest of the tourists. Magpie’s already in the middle of the story that led them to Diamond City, which Deacon suspects Indy already told if the look of fond exasperation on his face is anything to go by, but Magpie has the group enchanted with her apparently superior story telling skills and no one protests hearing the tale again. Her enthusiasm for her story wanes when she gets to the part about R14 killing Olivia because Magpie threatened Zimmer and Deacon realizes something he should’ve seen a week ago: Magpie blames herself for Olivia’s death. 

She was the one who threatened Zimmer’s life, which made R14’s programmed directive to protect essential personnel override his free will and led him to kill Olivia to get her weapon from her. Deacon can feel his brain immediately kicking over into ‘self-hate blaming’ mode as he realizes that he’d ignored her reaction to Olivia’s death in the face of his own, but he struggles to move outside of it because right now it isn’t about him, but her and if he wants to be a better person then he has to go a little easier on himself. Deacon sets a comforting hand on her shoulder and she gives him a watery smile before steeling herself and continuing the story.

When she’s finished, Deacon tells the group that if anyone happened to know if Olivia had family and where they might be, that they should drop by and talk with him later. “Good to see the rest of you had greater success in your runs, and that y’all made it back in one piece. Won’t always happen like that, so take the victories where you can. Did Dutch have you guys write a report on your runs?”

They all shake their heads.

“Write one for me, then. I know it might not be as fresh in your heads anymore, but it’s just practice. Your lead agents will have written the official report, so don’t worry about anyone other than me readin’ it.”

“And if we…uh, _can’t_ write?” Naughty Nancy asks as both Bullet and Indy look sheepishly at the floor. Ah, right. He’d forgotten that those skills were about fifty-fifty these days. 

“Well…Lacrimosa, you can read and write, yeah? I mean your name is latin, right?” Lacrimosa nods to both questions. “And Mender, howa ‘bout you?” The healer also gives a nod of confirmation. “And Magpie?” 

“You bet, boss,” she replies.

“Well, that solves that. Write your reports together. And I don’t need a novel, just anything that seems relevant that another agent might need to know if they were going to follow in your footsteps or do a similar run another night. Basically, ask yourself, ‘what would I want to know,’ and go from there.” There’s a murmur of agreement from the group. “Good. Let’s have it tomorrow morning and then we can get back to doing fun stuff, yeah? Ace.”

The tourists break up into their run groups and Deacon wonders if he should’ve given Magpie a bit more time to recover from the trek from Diamond City, but she seems eager enough to have something to do after sitting around, the way she has been all week, so he supposes he made the right decision. He heads back to Dutchman, who is watching him from the corner of the room with Harkness hovering nearby. 

“Pick up a new recruit?” Dutch asks, jabbing a thumb at Harkness, his face giving the impression of being relaxed, but Deacon can see the tension in his shoulders. Probably realized that Harkness is about as far from a regular Waster as you can get.

“Yep, though he’s a bit of a special case. What was it that you needed to chat about?”

Across the room, Magpie calls out, “Harkness! Get over here! Help us write this damn thing.” She’s leaning through the doorway that leads to the old bullpen —there are a few working terminals in the building and the tourists have spread out to work at them— with a _‘What the hell are you waiting for?’_ look on her face.

Deacon looks at Harkness and nods toward Magpie. “Better do as the lady says.”

“Is that appropriate?” he asks, hesitant.

“Hey, you wanna be a part of this group or what? Start integrating.”

Dutchman watches Harkness cross the room with a worried look. “Fucking hell,” he hisses at Deacon, pulling him into another room, and keeping his voice barely above a whisper. “Do you frequently make fuckin’ friends with Coursers?!”

“No. Told you, he’s special.”

“How can you be okay with this?”

Deacon frowns. “He almost killed me a week ago, so I’m not sure ‘okay’ is the right word—” it’s actually so far from the right word that they aren’t even on the same frigging continent “—but I’m positive he’s defected from the Institute.”

“For fuckssakes,” Dutch swears again and rubs a hand over his face. “Now I’ve gotta watch the fucker while you go to Augusta and pray you’ve read the situation right.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Deacon mutters, “And why do I gotta go to Augusta?”

“Desdemona and Carrington are waitin’ for you.” Deacon’s eyebrows raise, news travels like lightning these days. “When you didn’t report back, Rave was worried,” Dutch continues, seeing the look on Deacon’s face, “I came to check on things and then Indy arrived and… well, I sent word to Rave, and she sent word to HQ. They’ve been waitin’ for you to get back since yesterday.” 

“So…now?”

Dutch nods. “Now. I’ll tell ‘em you’ve gone to talk to the bigwigs, just…get back asap, okay?” He spares a worried look out the doorway of the room he dragged Deacon into as if Harkness is listening outside. Which is ridiculous, Harkness could probably hear them talking even two rooms away.

“I’ll be back lickety-split, and don’t worry about him,” Deacon says as he claps Dutchman on the shoulder and heads out. “If he really was gonna go all ‘double agent’ on us, he’d wait until he had a bigger target than a few tourists and two agents.”

“That’s not the least bit comfortin’, Dee.”

“Truth never is, pal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will a short story with X6-88 immediately following his interaction in this chapter with Deacon and Harkness (after I finish this monster all my short stories will be posted in a single, separate fic within this series) to further show the reasoning behind why X6 was okay with trading Zimmer’s life for Harkness, Deacon and Magpie’s. Dr. Li will make an appearance in it! I’m super excited for all these short fics. They’ll be fun. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you liked this chapter. :D


	26. Let's take a tally of these agitators, shall we?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _No, ’t is slander,_   
>  _whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue_   
>  _outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath_   
>  _rides on the posting winds, and doth belie_   
>  _all corners of the world._
> 
> _-Cymbeline (3.4.35)_

FDR meets Deacon at Augusta’s doors—the sentry probably sent word that he was in the vicinity. 

“Hey,” FDR says as Deacon slips inside. “Dez and Rave are in Rave’s office.” 

“Thanks,” Deacon replies and starts toward the central area of the hospital. He’s grateful for the restful sleep last night because he’s pretty sure that he’s going to need to be firing on all cylinders to face Desdemona and Carrington. FDR falls into step with him. “The doc busy?”

“He’s tryin’ to get all our agents back up to 100%. Hard to keep them on the docket when we don’t have a doctor.”

_Yeah,_ Deacon thinks, _you and every other safehouse._ Doctors are hard to come by in the ‘Wealth (real ones he means, not those ten-cent creeps who prey on the sick with false promises of health), and they’re even harder to come in the Railroad. There’s only three Deacon knows of, Carrington, Amari, and one down in Dayton house by the name of Yukon. Medics are slightly easier to come by, but even then they aren’t equipped with the knowledge needed to deal with the kind of injuries that agents get on a regular basis. Frankly, it’s a wonder that Carrington has time to work on his little side projects with all the trouble agents get into.

“I sent a newbie to fetch him now that you’ve arrived,” FDR continues. 

“So how did Bullet and Mender do?” Deacon asks after a minute or so of silence, as they start to weave their way through the scattered path that leads through blown out walls, old offices, and bits of ceiling debris made into ramps. For the most part, Deacon’s following FDR’s sure steps and trying to remember how many lefts and rights there are. There have been some changes since he was here last: more turrets, sandbag walls, and more dead ends. He wonders what necessitated the upgrade in defences. 

“Pretty good. I wasn’t sure what to expect with a pair of agent-wannabes, but either they’re naturally talented or you’re a good teacher. They knew their stuff. That Bullet is a helluva marksman.”

“That he is. And just for the record, I’m an awesome teacher.”

FDR chuckles. “Hearin’ that, I’m inclined to believe otherwise.”

“I’ll let that slide because you don’t know me all that well.”

“How generous of you,” FDR quips with a smirk and they walk together until they reach the catwalks above the bombed-out hole in central Augusta. “See ya around, Deacon,” he says and leaves Deacon, heading to a lower section of the catwalks. 

Deacon stands for a moment on the edge of what’s left of this particular floor, looking out over the catwalks and cobbled together bridges as he tries to compose himself for the yelling he’s likely to receive. He considers how to break the news of Harkness and how to talk about the man without giving away their past involvement—which if Harkness decides to tell anybody about may cause him further problems with the whole ‘you neglected to mention that, Deacon’ bit (with a few choice swear words included), but he’s going to try to worry about that when it happens and not now. If Dutchman’s reaction is anything to go by, he’s got enough to worry about at this moment.

“Stalling, are we?” Carrington asks a smirk in his voice as he approaches, his footsteps quiet on the floor.

Deacon turns, plastering a smile on his face. “Me? Never. I’m super excited to talk to the three of you about almost dying at the hands of a Courser. _Again._ And about the death of one of my tourists. I’ve been on pins all week in anticipation.”

Carrington gives him a careful once over and makes a noise of sarcastic agreement. “Let’s get to the fun part, then. After you, Deacon.” He gestures toward Rave’s office and Deacon starts along the catwalk (not looking down), feeling Carrington’s watchful eyes trying to pick out any residual injuries that might not have been treated properly—the doc has always had a low opinion of Wasteland physicians.

A cloud of smoke greets them when Deacon pushes open the door to Rave’s office, both Desdemona and Rave have cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. Deacon would hazard to guess that this isn’t their first or second cigarettes of the afternoon, and he pulls in a comforting lung full. Carrington waves the smoke out of his face with an annoyed expression and settles himself a chair, looking for a brief moment utterly exhausted. Deacon wonders how long he’s been on his feet. 

Dez directs Deacon to grab the other empty chair, set slightly away from the group and takes a seat on the edge of Rave’s desk herself. “It’s good to see you again, Deacon.”

“How about you hold that thought until after you hear what I gotta say.”

Dez’s expression hardens at once and Carrington sighs. Rave just raises an eyebrow.

“Such as?” Dez demands.

Deacon tries for as light a tone as possible. “Such as there’s a Courser who has defected from the Institute and wants to join us?” They all collectively hold their breath and when it looks like Desdemona might say something, Deacon adds —because he’ll forever be a shit, “And I brought him to the Cambridge Police Station to train with the other tourists.”

There’s a chorus of swears. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rave asks, jabbing her cigarette at him. 

“My thoughts exactly,” Carrington agrees and Dez pinches the bridge of her nose, smoke from her cigarette leaving a trail in the air.

“Why?” is the only thing she asks.

“Uh…because the Institute are a bunch of bastards?” Deacon replies.

“No.” Dez gives him a look that suggests she knows he’s purposefully being a dolt, but elaborates anyways, “Why did you bring him to the police station?”

“Oh, well, it didn’t seem like a good idea to bring him here—” Rave interjects with a raspy “You’re damn right.” “—and Ticon was out too, so it seemed the best place for him.”

Dez sighs. “You’re sure he’s defected?” and Deacon will admit to being somewhat surprised. She’s taking this much better than he thought. 

“Dez,” Carrington says, incredulous, “you’re not serious. After he was specifically told to watch for Institute infiltrators—”

She turns to Carrington. “Do you think they’d be so bold?”

“I think we’ve never run across a Courser that didn’t fire on sight.”

Deacon grins. “Well, have I got a story for you then,” he says and relates the meeting with X6-88 and how Harkness and it struck a one time deal not to kill one and another.

“Why didn’t _you_ kill it?” Rave asks, face in a full-on scowl when Dez and Carrington are quiet. 

“They seemed like they were…friends. Or at least as friendly as two Coursers can be. I was trying to win his trust and shootin’ his friend in the metaphorical back didn’t strike me as the way to go. Plus, I know Glory and me make it look easy, but you do realize that killin’ one of those things is hard, right?”

Carrington and Rave look at one another, almost without meaning to, and Deacon whistles. 

“You two killed a Courser?”

“We helped someone do it,” Carrington replies, “So, we’re well versed in the difficulties, Deacon. And I’ve never seen one willing to negotiate before.”

“Perhaps they’re a little more human than we give them credit for,” Dez says, smoke curling out of her mouth. “Especially if they didn’t like their leader.”

Rave snorts, smoke billowing out her nostrils. “Well I don’t know about you three, but I’ve never hated a boss or leader enough to want them dead. Maybe shot in the foot or thrown to the tender mercies of the Wastes. Coursers are still as foreign to me as ever.”

There’s an odd sort of look that flickers over Carrington’s face at Rave’s words. Not the kind of look that Deacon would associate with someone wanting to kill another person. No. It’s almost like Rave’s words brought up a memory he’d rather not think about. The next moment it’s gone and Carrington’s face settles into an even more annoyed look than before. 

“We weren’t aware they had enough of an emotional range to dislike or even hate someone. It’s interesting at the very least,” Dez replies, a thoughtful look on her face. “Perhaps it’s something that can be manipulated in the future.”

“Can’t kill Zimmer twice, so I think it’ll be a one-time deal.” Deacon shrugs. “Unless they end up with another SRB leader that they don’t respect. Of course, we’d have no way to know that.”

“And we can’t very well go around asking Coursers if they’re unfilled in their jobs,” Carrington adds sarcastically, but Dez nods in agreement non-the-less.

“What do you plan to do with this Courser defect?” Dez asks, pinning him with her gaze.

“He wants to join and I’m training tourists so I figured I’d train him too. That okay?” Deacon asks and then looks past them at a dirty spot on the wall. “I’m down a tourist now, anyways.”

“Yes, we heard,” Dez replies, voice sad. “I’m sorry, Dee.”

“…Yeah, me too.”

Dez looks at Carrington then and they seem to have a silent conversation, after a moment Carrington sighs. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but if this Courser truly does want to join us, then we’d be fools not to take him.”

“My thinking as well,” Dez agrees. “Though I’m not sure which safehouse will _want_ an ex-Courser as an agent, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Was there anything else, Deacon?”

“Yeah, actually,” Deacon replies and quickly explains what Nick mentioned to him last night about Harkness talking about watching the Brotherhood of Steel and known Railroad routes. “Of course, I don’t know what routes he means so I figure someone should question him about it. Maybe he can talk more about it being a Courser and not a Gen 3.”

“They’re watching the Brotherhood?” Carrington asks, something like disgust in his tone, and Deacon thinks it’s a little odd that Carrington is more concerned about the Institute keeping tabs on the Brotherhood than he is about the Institute knowing about Railroad routes. “Are they wondering how long it might be before those power armoured boy scouts steamroll over the rest of the East Coast? Wasn’t the Capital enough for them?”

“The Brotherhood of Steel isn’t our concern,” Desdemona replies, but Deacon hardly acknowledges her words. He didn’t know that Carrington was from the Capital, and he called the Brotherhood ‘power armoured boy scouts’, that’s exactly what Eden used to call them…

“They may well be if they ever decide to come to the Commonwealth,” Carrington says. “Watts has plenty enough trouble trying to avoid them and _we_ certainly can’t fight a war on two fronts.”

“Who says they’ll start a war with us?” Rave asks, crushing her cigarette out. “I’ve been to the Capital plenty’a times, and they never seemed interested in anything other than their own advancement. Watts’ HQ isn’t under any more scrutiny than normal.”

“They also don’t like to share and we both know that Watts is having difficulties as of late operating without drawing attention.”

“Enough,” Dez cuts in. “This discussion is pointless we can’t do anything about Watts’ troubles. We need to focus on our organization, not theirs. Deacon, how likely is it that he’ll be able to talk to us?”

Deacon shrugs. “I don’t know. This information is second hand. He didn’t tell me these things, he told Nick. Maybe he can only say it to another synth.”

Dez and Carrington share another look. “Did we ever consider that?” she asks him. “Has Tom?”

“I can’t be that simple. Surely.” Carrington shakes his head in disbelief. “Tom must have tried having two synths talk to one another about this stuff before,” but neither Dez nor Carrington seem to quite believe his words. 

Desdemona turns to Rave. “Do you have a synth agent in house?”

Rave shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

“Ticon does,” Deacon chimes in.

“But do they have a computer system capable of handling Tom’s tech?” Carrington asks, then looks at Desdemona. “He’ll have to be brought down for this, along with all his various devices; we can’t have a Courser at HQ.”

Dez gives a thoughtful nod and turns back to Deacon. “Well?” she asks. 

So, this is how HQ finds out he’s housing an ex-presidential A.I. in his bedroom at Ticon? Great. “…Yeah. I uh, _may_ have beefed up one of Ticon’s computers.”

All three of them give him a look. “What exactly does that mean, Deacon?” Dez asks. 

“Oh, ya know… I sorta started this project where agents and synths record their stories on a heavily encrypted terminal so I could…uh, make like a ‘behind the music’ sorta thing outta it. For history’s sake. To be posted posthumously, of course.” Deacon winces internally because that was probably _the worst_ lie he’s ever had occasion to tell. 

Carrington raises an eyebrow of disbelief, Desdemona frowns at him like she doesn’t understand why he’s lying, and Rave rolls her eyes. 

“Look, does it really matter? It’ll get the job done. Though, I doubt High Rise will be comfortable with you guys deciding to send a Courser to his safehouse.” Especially not this particular Courser, though if Deacon’s memory serves, Harkness was cloaked when he tossed HR like a rag doll across the street outside Postal Square. So maybe if they don’t say anything High Rise will be none the wiser.

“That’s why you’ll be there every step of the way,” Dez replies after a moment, her frown not quite lifting. 

“Dez…I’ve got other things to do. I’ve been away from my tourists long enough. Surely Dutch or Parade could handle escorting him to Ticon.”

“But he knows you,” she insists, “you’re his point of contact. If anyone should be escorting him, it’s you.”

Deacon drums his fingers on his thigh in his only outward show of annoyance. Harkness isn’t going to like this. Hell, _he_ doesn’t like this. 

“Unless there’s some reason why it shouldn’t be you?” Carrington adds.

“The simple fact that he tried to kill me doesn’t have any bearing on the situation?” Deacon snaps, losing his good humour for a moment. _On three separate occasions,_ his head unhelpfully adds.

“What? You don’t trust him?” Rave asks, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “Big surprise.”

“He doesn’t like _me._ ”

“Then tell him to get to the back of the damn line,” Dez replies, smirking to soften the sharpness of the comment. Carrington snorts. 

“Thanks for remindin’ me I’m the least liked agent behind Carrington,” Deacon says and that gets Rave laughing. Carrington shoots her rude gesture with his hand, but his smirk gives him away. He didn’t think Carrington had friends in the Railroad—he seems to treat everyone with the same level of disdain. Though, if he, Rave, and another agent killed a Courser together, that’s bound to create some life long bonds. 

“I wouldn’t say the least,” Dez returns, a smile cracking her face before she gets serious again. “And Deacon, it wasn’t a request. It’ll take a few days to get Tom down to Ticon—”

“Longer than that,” Carrington interrupts, “You’ll have to spend at least two days talking him into leaving HQ. Not to mention talking a couple agents into escorting him.”

Desdemona sighs. “Where’s Glory when you need her? Alright. Let’s say a week. Bring your Courser friend to Ticon then and Tom should have made it down. I’ll send word to High Rise to expect you and make sure that their synth agent is in house then.”

“Jolene,” Deacon says. “Her name is Jolene,” and Dez nods.

“Shouldn’t take me more than another day to get Augusta’s agents back on their feet,” Carrington says, “I’ll go to Ticon after. They probably need my services just as much. I’ll return to HQ with Tom.”

“Your whole stay better not just be work,” Rave tells Carrington, a mock sort of sternness in her voice. “I expect to get blind drunk with you one of these nights and catch up.”

Deacon starts chuckling. “Now there something I’d pay to see. 

“I suppose then, that it’s fortunate there aren’t enough caps in the Wasteland to do so,” Carrington replies and turns to Rave. “Tomorrow night,” he agrees and then leaves the room.

“Seriously, though,” Deacon says to Rave, standing to go so he can catch up to Carrington and talk to him before he heads back to the police station. “Can I come back tomorrow night and watch? I didn’t even know Carrington drank or had friends. This is like the Holy Grail of cranky doctors.”

Rave chuckles. “Get the fuck out, Deacon.”

“Is that a no?”

“I think that’s a ‘Hell no,’ Dee,” Dez replies and Deacon throws up his hands in surrender. “And I’m still glad to see you back safe, in one piece.”

“Hey, you and me both,” he says with a genuine smile before stepping out of Rave’s office. Deacon catches Carrington on the catwalk. “Hey doc, you gotta a moment to talk?”

Carrington glances over his shoulder at Deacon, barely slowing his pace. It’s miraculous actually, Deacon has to frequently remind himself not to look down. “Are you injured?”

“Nope. Pretty good doc in Diamond City. Not at your calibre, naturally,—” Carrington snorts, “—but better than most. Actually, got this weird message for you when I was in Diamond City.”

Carrington pauses on the catwalk and turns to face Deacon fully; he would have preferred if the doctor had stopped on the solid ground of the floor instead of the lightly swaying bridge. “Such as?” Carrington asks.

“It seemed sorta personal,” Deacon elaborates and Carrington turns away, beckoning him to follow. 

They weave through the various collapsed sections of the hospital (both of them having to pause at one or another hallway trying to remember which way to go in the maze-like corridors that Augusta sports. Anyone trying to attack this place will probably wonder what labyrinthian hell they’ve walked into) to the old triage area for the hospital’s emergency entrance. It’s been preserved to serve as the safehouses clinic and there are a couple agents on the room’s gurneys, one with a RadAway pack dangling from an IV pole reading a _Live & Love_ magazine and the other sleeping with no apparent indication of injury.

Carrington leads Deacon behind a semi-circular nurse’s desk set against the near wall to the office behind it. The office is cramped—one desk with far too many filing cabinets for the space—and it smells of ancient dust and decaying paper. There are a few patient files spread out on the desk open in various spots like Carrington had been reading through them (idle curiosity perhaps? or is he looking for something in particular?) and a dirty plate on one corner that Carrington hasn’t yet had time to take back to the kitchen.

He gestures for Deacon to grab the one chair in front of the desk while Carrington sits in the one behind it. “Well, let’s have it,” Carrington says.

“Do you know a guy by the name of Sun?”

Carrington’s brow furrows. “No. Should I?”

“Well, he knows you. He gave me a note with a message. I burned it, but I can tell you what it said verbatim: ‘Tell Carrington (if you even know who that is), I’m not dead. -Sun’.”

Carrington’s confusion only seems to grow and Deacon starts to wonder if Sun was trying to feel him out, hoping Deacon would make a mistake and assume he was a Railroad friendly and spill some info to him. Did he read the situation wrong during his time in Diamond City? Was it not actually McDonough or Latimer that was the infiltrator, but Sun instead?

“What do you mean when you say ‘sun’?” Carrington asks after a moment a look of dawning realization crossing his face. “As in ‘descendant’ or the orb in the sky?” 

Deacon opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again. Hmm. How did the doctor write it on the note? He closes his eyes and tries to picture it in his head. “…S-U-N is how I think he wrote it. Does that change things?”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be without askin’ Nick or Amari.”

Carrington pulls in a deep lungful of air before letting it out again in a _whoosh._

“You really thought he was dead,” Deacon says, studying the look of surprise and relief? Happiness? Guilt? (that second one is hard to place) on Carrington’s face.

“We all did.” Carrington looks at a spot past Deacon’s shoulder. “His codename name was Helios and that Courser Rave and I helped kill? He was the one we helped. After it was dead, Helios vanished. He was badly injured and we thought… we thought he’d disappeared in the Wastes to die.”

“Apparently not.”

Carrington gives a distracted sort of hum, his thoughts clearly no longer on the conversation. Deacon gives him a couple minutes. 

“So, is he friend or foe?” 

Carrington’s gaze lands back on Deacon, his previous expression wiped from his face (guess Deacon isn’t the only one capable of putting on a mask) and raises an eyebrow as he smirks. “I think we count Courser killers among our friends, don’t we?” His look seems to suggest something along the lines of _‘Why else are we friends with you, Deacon?’_

“Yeah, yeah. You and me are everyone’s favourite agents. Got it.” Deacon rolls his eyes but gives Carrington a grin. He not that put out. “Can you send word to Clockwork about it, and have him mention it to Nick as well?” Nick will tell Ellie and she’ll rightly gloat next time he sees her, but in the meantime, perhaps she can work on whatever plan she’s thinking about with confidence that Sun can be trusted. 

Carrington frowns slightly. “As in Nick Valentine? I wasn’t aware he’d been cleared from suspicion of being an Institute plant and he knows that you’re a Railroad agent? _Deacon…_ ”

“I’m 90% sure the Institute plant is DC’s mayor. 10% that it could a prominent Upperstander. But I’m 100% sure that Nick has nothin’ to do with them.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Look, am I or am I not bein’ trusted to ferret out any Institute flunkies? I spent way more time in Diamond City than I have with those tourists.” Deacon holds out his hands. “You know how paranoid I am if I thought for one moment that Nick was one of them…”

Of course, he might be too close to the situation now to objectively judge, and frankly, the idea that Nick might—well, he can scarcely imagine such a betrayal. He might have to disappear in the Wastes himself if that ever happened and hope to run into another deathclaw. 

“Very well,” Carrington concedes. “If we don’t trust each other then we have nothing. I’ll send a dead drop to Clockwork, _after_ you tell Dez that you have essentially made Nick Valentine a tourist.”

Deacon winces. “Caught, that did ya?” and Carrington nods. “Do I have to? Can’t we just live in peaceful ignorance.”

“No.”

“You’ve sentenced me to death, ya know that right, doc? And after all the man-hours you’ve put in keepin’ me alive, too.”

“Be sure and remind Dez of that when you tell her. It might just save your hide,” Carrington says and waves Deacon out of his temporary office, he’s halfway out the door when Carrington speaks again. “And, Deacon? Thank you. It’s…it’s good to know he’s still alive.”

Deacon nods and heads back to Rave’s office to talk to Desdemona. 

\- - - - -

He returns to the police station after speaking with Dez about Nick and Ellie—granted, Carrington didn’t know about her but he might as well come clean about it since Amari does and well, he did actually mean to mention it at one point or another. Her frown was fairly epic when he told her about it, but after a time she said the same thing Carrington had, more or less:

“Well, I wouldn’t’ve, but I trust you. That’s enough.”

Deacon kills the next week with some stealth training for the tourists. Harkness and Magpie are a lot of help with this. Harkness shows them general things to do to avoid detection, though there are plenty of occasions where he looks like he wants to be more specific about synths and even Coursers but gets that same look on his face that the other Gen 3s do when they want to say something but physically can’t. Maybe he really can only talk to another synth. Or maybe, there are just some things that are considered a higher priority than others. 

Dutchman follows in Deacon’s wake as he trains, Rave sent word that he was to stick around until after Deacon and Harkness got back from Ticon, and his expertise as a full-time field agent is very helpful and more importantly, motivating. It’s one thing for Deacon to talk about this stuff, but he’s more of a ‘creep around and infiltrate things’ kind of agent and he hasn’t been a steady schedule of runs in over two years. Dutch can speak about recent runs and situations in a way that Deacon can’t.

They set up camp in the Lexington ruins, about a half a day’s walk from the police station. There are plenty of ferals to test their skills on, and the Corvega plant is continuously rife with raiders. It’s an excellently defendable spot so no matter how many times a raider gang is cleared out, a new one is always ready to take its place. Hell, they often kill one another for the factory. Lexington offers the double challenge of clearing out ferals while not being detected by either the ferals or the raiders on the hill, so it offers a lot training for a per square block. 

After a couple of days of ferals, they run into a small group of raiders set up in one of the apartment buildings. They’re probably trying to put together a plan of attack to take the Corvega plant for themselves and unfortunately for Deacon’s group, they’ve managed to get a hold of a missile launcher and a cobbled together power armour suit for the occasion. Still, it’s a good exercise in stealth, because a head-on assault with even one of those things is a bad idea and two together? Nope. No way José.

They go in at night, Harkness and Magpie on point (not that Harkness needs stealth training, or Magpie even, just that it’s better for their leadership skills if they give the orders and not him). With Indy’s help the two of them set up the plan for their ambush, Deacon having to remind Harkness a couple of times, discretely, that he’s not commanding synth troops or Coursers and human beings can’t actually drop from the roof down two stories and not end up with sprained or broken limbs or take down three raiders in quick succession without getting shot. Hell, Deacon can only do that if they’re really chem’d up or he’s in the cover of a stealth boy, and certainly not with speed or accuracy of a Courser. 

“ _Training_ exercise,” Deacon reminds him again much to Magpie’s amusement.

Overall the situation is handled okay. Not great, but nobody dies and there are only a few knife wounds and a couple pistol whippings that have to be looked after by Mender—Harkness was the distraction for the missile launcher while Magpie and Deacon worried about snatching the fusion core from the armour; Bullet set up a sniper position and Indy, Lacrimosa, and Naughty Nancy snuck up behind the rest and put them down.

The raider’s apartment building is much better looked after than the one they had been crashing in so they take it over as their temporary base of operations. Bullet is psyched about the power armour they’ve found, and it would certainly be helpful for a heavy to have if sorely lacking in subtly. Thankfully, he has used one in the past because Deacon would rather not have to train someone in the finer points of power armour use if he can avoid it.

Before Deacon and Harkness leave for Ticonderoga, Deacon talks with the group to see if they want to return to the police station and wait for them to return, or stay in Lexington and finish dealing with whatever ferals that figuratively or literally crawl out of its cracks. There’s some discussion, but in the end, with Dutchman’s approval, they decide to stay in Lexington and work further on their stealth skills while Deacon and Harkness are away. When the two of them return, they’ll all take on the raiders that have taken up residence in the Corvega plant. 

(The apartment raider’s plans were shoddy at best, but they did manage to keep track of the number of their rivals in the plant and it’s more than three times that of the number Deacon remembers last time he went to visit the Corvega plant. As Bullet and Harkness point out likely sentry positions and choke points, Deacon touches the scar above his eyebrow. This time he isn’t going to be so rash about taking on a bunch of raiders.)

With that settled, Deacon and Harkness set out for Ticon the next morning. They arrive in the late afternoon, Uncle greeting them from his patrol around the building. He regards Harkness with a wary sort of politeness that is probably going to be Harkness’ normal in the Railroad for a long while and directs them to head up to the safehouse. Tinker Tom and his agent escort, Tommy Whispers and Beatrice Bell, arrived yesterday and judging from the manic way Tinker is fluttering about the main level when Deacon and Harkness step off the elevator, the man hasn’t slept since he arrived. 

High Rise glances over at Deacon with a look of exasperation. He and Jolene are trying to get Tinker’s various devices to gel with the terminal that’s been set up in the main living area. At first, Deacon wonders why HR is helping and not just leaving it up to Jolene, but Deacon gleans from their conversation that the terminal is actually High Rise’s and is being borrowed to act as a go between the mic set up in a separate closed room and JH. When Jolene catches sight of him, Deacon gives her a smile because thank God she had the foresight to set this up.

“Hey Tinker,” Deacon says as he settles beside the man, peering at the mess of wiring that’s connecting Tinker’s homemade devices, “somethin’ not workin’?

Tinker jumps a little at the address and Deacon wonders how may psychotats he’s had today. Carrington, seated on one of the couches across from them, catches Deacon’s eye (he must have seen the look that crossed Deacon’s face) and hold up five fingers and then three. Five psychotats in the last three hours. Deacon frowns slightly at the high number, but Carrington is here so he knows the doctor is watching Tinker carefully.

“Dee-man!” Tinker says, lighting up, then his face falls slightly as his brain catches up to the question Deacon posed, “I think we’re overloadin’ the connection.” He scans the data flitting across the screen. “Maybe if a coupla these things were hooked right into the source…” he trails off and shoots a frown at Jolene, who crosses her arms. Ah, she must not be allowing anyone upstairs to see JH.

Deacon throws an arm around Tinker’s slender shoulders. “Hey, that’s no problem. Just give me the ones that you think are causin’ the issue and I’ll hook ‘em up to the main computer.” He glances at Jolene, silently asking if that’s okay—no need to step on toes about how she’s handling this and JH—and she nods. Tinker’s manic energy returns in a flash as he flits around trying to decide which ones to give to Deacon. 

High Rise steps around the mess, avoiding Tinker as he works, and stops next to Deacon. “Good to see you again, man,” he says, grinning. “Though, I coulda done without the invasion—” he jabs a thumb in the general direction of Carrington, Tommy, Tinker, and Bell. “Not used to this large a crowd.” Everyone native to Ticon is loitering in the main living area or in the kitchen watching Tinker Tom and waiting for the magic to happen, save for Uncle and Drummer.

“Yeah, it’s definitely more than we’ve ever had. Sorry, for volunteerin’ your house, HR, but Rave doesn’t have any synth agents.”

“Nah, it’s cool. I mean, I’m complainin’, but it’s also neat to see Tom at work, ya know? Only ever heard tales. Never seen his particular crazy for myself.”

Deacon chuckles. “It’s special, no doubt about it. Saw Uncle out on patrol, is Drummer on a run?” 

HR shakes his head. “He’s got a nasty case of the flu right now, exasperated by radiation poisoning. The idiot didn’t say anything to us until he collapsed. Carrington arriving was a stroke of luck.” He frowns. “Maybe I’m pushin’ too hard, I shoulda seen it before he fainted.”

“I know you, and I know that you are constantly checkin’ to see if agents are good to go on a run, patrol, or otherwise. Yeah, maybe you shoulda noticed, but it’s also their responsibility to tell you when somethin’ is too much.”

High Rise sighs. “Yeah. I know, but…” he rubs his face and looks like he might say more but, a glance at Harkness keeps him quiet. “So,” he says instead, giving Harkness a critical look, “you’re the Courser that’s ‘causin’ all this hubbub. What’s your name?”

“Harkness.”

Tinker interrupts then, shoving an armful of gizmos into Deacon’s arms, heedless of the conversation going on. “Here. All this should be hooked to the main computer system. They all got cords, but if you need any help…” There a gleam in Tinker’s eye that suggests he’s dying to get a look at whatever computer is sequestered away in Ticon, but Jolene tells him with a bit of bite in her voice that, “I’m sure he’ll manage just fine,” and Tinker shoots her a scowl before looking pleadingly at Deacon.

“Sorry pal,” Deacon says, adjusting the load in his arms, “but she’s in charge of tech around here. I only get to see the thing ‘cause it’s in my room.”

Tinker makes a noise of dismay, but Deacon knows that he hasn’t given up yet. He’ll probably try and get a look at the system through High Rise’s terminal, not that JH will let him. Tinker will likely spend all his time at Ticon trying to get a look at it and when they leave it’ll probably be shoved aside for whatever new project catches his fancy. That’ll suit Deacon and Jolene just fine. 

High Rise waves Jolene over and introduces her to Harkness, though, judging by the looks the pass over both their faces, they remember each other from the Institute. Before things move on to the actual sussing out what Harkness (and maybe Jolene) can talk about concerning the Institute, Deacon tells Jolene that he’d like to talk with her once she’s done, then he heads up the stairs to see JH.

Jolene catches up to him on the first landing. “Uh, don’t freak out when you see it,” she whispers, voice barely auditable, but knowing that Harkness can likely hear them, “I’ve done a lot since you were last here.” Deacon gives a quick nod, worried about what he might find upstairs and Jolene looks like she wants to follow him and explain further, but turns and heads back downstairs to show Harkness the private room they’ve set up for their conversation.

Deacon doesn’t know how well this plan will work, if at all, but the more it seems like the two of them are alone the higher chances that they’ll trick some of the firewalls in their brains so they can talk more freely. 

He continues up the stairs, arms tightening with every step as the load he carries shifts and threatens to fall. He moves faster, Jolene’s warning slipping from his mind momentarily as Tinker’s gizmos try to escape his grasp. The door to his room is already open a space to allow for the wires running to the terminal downstairs, so he uses the toe of his boot to push it the rest of the way open, making a beeline for the bed. 

Once they’re safe from breaking on the floor, Deacon turns back to the room, allowing the change to fully sink in, and his eyebrows raise. Jolene has been _very_ busy. 

JH’s constructed servers have easily doubled in number, climbing the wall on brackets and resting on low tables pulled from the lower level of Ticon. Wire stream from them all, hung from hooks on the ceiling and meeting again the main terminal, looking like blood vessels heading back to the heart. His filing cabinets and boxes of robot parts have disappeared, probably largely repurposed for this and the rest stored elsewhere. The drawings of robot schematics have moved from the billboard, the area now housing a couple of clusters of small servers, and have been taped to the newspaper mâché’d to the window. Only his safe and bed are left untouched, though the heat of the room now would make it uncomfortable at best and hellish at worst to sleep in, and somehow, Deacon images that they too will have to find a new home one of these days. He should empty his safe before he leaves. 

Deacon had no idea that Jolene had done so much work since he’d been gone. The last time he was here, Deacon didn’t do much more than drop off his scrounged electronics in a box and grab some glowing fungus, bloodleaf, and hubflower paste from Callie. In all, he didn’t spend more than 10 minutes at Ticon before he was gone again.

“Wow, you give a girl an inch and she takes a mile,” Deacon says in both admiration and slight sadness. Ticon had been a home of sorts a long while now and part of him doesn’t like being shoved out of it like this. Of course, Nick’s in Diamond City so maybe it’s not _that_ bad of a thing, and he built the damn thing in here, what exactly did he expect to happen? “Not sure I can lay a claim on his room anymore, JH. I think it’s yours now.” He turns back to the gizmos he dumped on the bed, meaning to grab a couple and read JH’s response when he looks for a—

“I’m more than happy to share it with you, Deacon.”

—he freezes for a split second before he darts to the door without conscious thought to close it as best he can. His hand is shaking where it’s resting on the door’s handle indentation as Deacon tries to shove down the onslaught of painful memories _that_ voice brings up. Like the one he had to relive in the Memory Lounger. Deacon squeezes his eyes closed and tries to banish it, as well as the echo of Braun’s voice crawling along his spine. 

“She got you some speakers,” he says instead of falling victim to Braun’s memory, his voice breaking somewhat.

“A camera, as well,” JH adds, voice quiet like he understands that Deacon can’t quite stand to hear it.

Deacon leans his head against the door, the metal cool on his skin. His first instinct to flee, to get as far away from this place as possible, Vault 111 if necessary, but…he can’t. Not now. Not with Harkness downstairs and Railroad business all around him. So, he takes a deep breath and turns, looking away from JH’s main console in favour of his bed, and takes a few steps to pick up a couple devices.

The room is darker than normal with his drawings blocking the already weak light of the newspaper mâché, only the green and yellow glow of various pin lights and the main console’s screen provide any real light and it’s not enough to see by with sunglasses on now that the door is closed. With the gizmos in hand, Deacon heads back to the door to flick the switch for the room’s light. _Click._ Nothing happens. He tries once more before JH speaks again. 

“I’m afraid that Jolene had to commandeer its power about a month ago, she uses a lantern when needed and the light in the hall.”

“Ah,” Deacon mutters and resigns himself to losing the protection of his sunglasses because he can’t open the door for the light and let JH be heard. He pulls them off with one finger and sets them on the one small unused area of the desk. “So, I have a few things that Tinker Tom needs plugged into the source,” he says and sits on the desk’s chair, squinting at the devices’ connections and ignoring the welling sensations of grief and anger and _fear._

Every word that JH says seems to draw him deeper and deeper into reliving his time in the Memory Lounger. Braun and Eden are inextricably linked in his mind and hearing JH talk in that exact copy of Eden’s soft southern drawl is almost more than he can handle right now. He can almost hear Braun’s taunts echoing in his ears. He’s lost many of his protective layers in the last week with Nick, who seems to have an uncanny ability to strip them away the longer Deacon’s with him, and he hasn’t grown them back yet. Deacon isn’t sure if he can.

He focuses on plugging the gizmos in, one after another, saying nothing, worried that if he does talk any more, everything will come spilling out one horrible rush and Jesus why couldn’t he have gotten a little more warning? It wasn’t as if he never expected things to get this far, Deacon just figured it’d be on his timeline and not out of his control. 

When he gets the last one in, Deacon asks in a very deliberate and careful tone if they’re causing JH any trouble. 

“No,” he answers, “though, I understand why they had to be plugged in up here. They’re very…odd. I don’t think I’ve ever come across such technology before.”

“And I doubt you will again.” Deacon grabs his sunglasses from the table and starts to stand, meaning to leave right away. 

“You’re in distress,” JH states calmly. “Have I done something wrong?”

“I…It’s not you. I mean, it sorta is, but it’s not like you can do anything about it and I—” Deacon gives a sharp jerk of his head, trying to shake himself out of babbling and pushes the chair away. “I need to go.”

“John…”

Deacon stops, hand curled around the edge of the door. Somehow that isn’t quite as bad as ‘Jack’, but it evokes more memories of Eden; aside from his dad, only Eden ever called him ‘John’—unless of course it was meant as an emphasis of disappointment or disapproval (which Almodovar like to use at least once a week).

“Funny,” Deacon says quietly, trying to move away from the subject of his distress, “you called me ‘Jack’ before. Findin’ a little more Eden pinging around in there now that you have more processing power?”

“It would seem so. Forgive me. If you prefer Jack—”

“I _prefer_ Deacon.”

“I don’t see Deacon.”

He feels a flash of anger before it morphs into resignation. Nick’s presence has taken its toll. “What do you see then?” Deacon murmurs.

“A vest with a heart on it that you can’t seem to give up despite it clearly marking you even with your face changes. A willingness to do more than you say you want to by bringing former enemies into the fold, gathering technology, and establishing roots. You speak in the temporary, John, but your actions are anything but.”

Deacon holds on to the door for several breaths, before turning slightly to lean his shoulder on it. JH is right, of course. Deacon knew that even before he told Nick he loved him, and now it’s an inescapable fact. He can’t leave the Commonwealth, not without Nick and Nick isn’t likely to leave (it’s sort of funny, but how long did he tell himself that he had to leave _because_ of Nick, and now he can’t leave _without_ him) but it’s more than that; he doesn’t _want_ to leave.

He turns around completely and takes a seat in the chair again, setting his sunglasses down again. “You didn’t kill him,” Deacon says. “Not completely.”

There’s a beat where the only sounds in the room are the noise of the servers then, “Dr. Braun. How did he manage to survive?” JH’s voice is low, almost angry.

Deacon taps his temple, “In here. Didn’t even know until—until March.” He gives a brief, stuttering synopsis of being trapped in the Memory Lounger, wanting to die, and Nick pulling him out by the skin of his teeth. He avoids giving much in the way of details, so he doesn’t have to go back there again. Bad enough he dreams about it still when he’s in places that aren’t safe. 

When he’s done, there’s another long moment of quiet. Then, “I’m sorry you suffered at his hands once again. I’m grateful for Mr. Valentine’s efforts, though it can’t have been easy for you.”

Deacon scrubs a hand over his face. “It wasn’t. It isn’t.”

“Is that piece still there? In your mind?”

Deacon looks at the console in some confusion. “Why wouldn’t it be?” But as he thinks about it...he had thought Braun would torture him after the Lounger with dreams that were hard to wake from and a dripping voice in his ear commenting on all the things he did, but neither had happened. Braun was quiet.

“Dr. Braun lived for 200 years in that simulated reality; he was acutely attuned to the technology. Without having seen these Memory Loungers for myself, I can only guess, but I would think the technology they use is very similar. Dr. Braun might take advantage of that.”

A shiver runs up Deacon’s spine. “Do you think that he…that he might be there instead?” He’s not sure which is worse: that Braun is still in his head, or that he might end up in some unsuspecting synth. What sort of havoc might he wreak then? Just mental anguish for that one person, or might he be stronger in a synth that had its personality and memories wiped and bring down his special kind of torture on a settlement or the ‘Weath as a whole? “ _Oh, God…_ I have to send a message to Amari.”

“Yes, and hope that it’s not yet too late.”

Deacon starts pulling open desk drawers, he was sure he had a stash of holotapes in here, but the more drawers he opens and finds various wiring and electrical components and no holotapes, the more frantic he gets. “Where the hell are they?” Deacon stands, slamming the last drawer shut. “She must have moved them. HR keeps some in his room, I’ll be right back.”

“Of course.” 

Deacon flies down the short hall and dashes into High Rise’s room. His personal terminal usually sits on the desk right in front of the door, but there’s now a strange bare space where it usually resides. Deacon pulls the top left-hand drawer open and snatches a holotape from the pile before rushing back toward his room and in his haste, fails to notice and runs right into Carrington at the door. They almost hit the floor with the force of it, clutching each other awkwardly to prevent just that. 

“What the hell, Deacon?” Carrington snaps, stumbling back a step. 

“Sorry, didn’t see you,” Deacon replies and glances at the door he neglected to close. Carrington is standing directly in front of the open doorway so there’s no chance for him to dart inside and close it before the doctor gets a look at what’s in it. “Need somethin’?”

Carrington pulls his shirt straight. “Tom still hasn’t gotten confirmation that his devices are working.” The words are hardly out of Carrington’s mouth before Tinker’s shout of “All good!” echoes up the stairs and Deacon frowns. Why didn’t JH do that _before_ Carrington had to climb the damn stairs? And why the hell was it Carrington to begin with? High Rise could’ve sent anyone, should’ve sent someone else.

“Problem solved.” Deacon flashes Carrington a grin he doesn’t feel in the slightest and clearly, the look on the doctor’s face tells him it isn’t bought. Probably because Carrington can see that it doesn’t reach his eyes. And that’s exactly the reason he wears sunglasses. “There somethin’ else?” Deacon questions, stepping closer to Carrington, trying to make him step back enough for Deacon to get inside the room.

Carrington holds his ground and gives Deacon a scowl, the doctor has always been roughly Deacon’s height and never intimidated by…well, anyone that Deacon can recall. “Yes. Perhaps you should explain that,” Carrington points at the haphazard mess that is JH’s console and servers. “because it seems like more than just a simple ‘beefing up’.”

Deacon’s mind whirs to think up a plausible excuse when JH takes the opportunity from him.

“Please come in, Dr. Singh,” he says, voice low but unmistakable. “This isn’t a conversation for the hall.”

In all the time Deacon’s known Carrington, he’s never seen the man surprised. Annoyed, frustrated, angry, resigned, tired, amused, and even on one occasion slightly off-guard, but _never_ surprised. Frankly, it’s a look Deacon could do without seeing again. There’s comfort in Carrington’s unruffledness (much like his father used to be), in his ability to carry out his duties with steady hands even if he’s shaking with anger, but to see him so wrong-footed is…well it just isn’t right. Like the world has suddenly lurched to one side. 

Carrington stares into the room, shock etched in every feature and looking for all the world like a statue. After a few uncomfortable seconds, Deacon touches his arm and Carrington jolts like he’s been struck, then he totters into the room, mumbling, “I— yes, of course. Obviously.” Deacon squeezes in behind him, closing the door, and has to direct Carrington to sit in the desk chair while he shimmies around and finds a seat on the bed. 

There’s a moment of silence that Deacon finds dreadfully awkward, but Carrington seems to need it to compose himself somewhat, looking visibly shaken. “You…you’re—”

It clicks then suddenly, and Deacon mentally kicks himself for it taking this long to actually realize (he’ll blame it on the shock of the conversation moments before) that Carrington is, _was,_ a member of The Enclave. 

“Yes,” JH agrees.

Carrington nods mutely. “Some of us—we suspected. You were everywhere—but…” He takes a deep breath in and then out. Deacon remembers that initial shock himself, realizing that Eden wasn’t a man in the strictest sense of the word. Carrington glances around, looking for something. “How? I thought…the Brotherhood—they destroyed everything.”

“Yes. And what they didn’t destroy they took. I would’ve met the same fate if it hadn’t been for…John.” JH hesitates briefly on what to call him, but settles on Deacon’s real name in what he suspects is an attempt at fairness. After all, JH called Carrington, Singh.

Carrington looks to him in some confusion before the same click that happened to Deacon shortly before lights across his face. “ _You,_ ” he says, and now they both know each other’s alter egos. 

“That’s not terribly informative,” Deacon says anyways, clinging to his mask. “That could mean anyone. After all, there are a lot of people called John. Hell, he used to be called John.” Deacon jabs a finger at JH’s main console. 

For the first time since JH spoke the doctor’s real name, Carrington gets an annoyed look on his face and things start to feel normal again. “Don’t be so idiotic,” he tells Deacon. “I was there when you ran through the base killing and trying not be killed when the Colonel gave orders to shoot you. Granted, you look a lot different and aren’t quite so…” he trails off and shrugs, unable to put the change into words, but Deacon knows what he means, “You—you saved my life that day.”

“I doubt that,” Deacon replies, giving up and resigning himself to having four people who know his past. “I was the reason that it burned with laser and plasma fire.”

“No,” Carrington says, “They were shooting at you and those of us not on anyone’s ‘side’—” he glances up in the far corner of the room and Deacon follows; it’s the camera that JH mentioned earlier. He’s taking the whole ‘Eden was an A.I.’ thing really well, “—you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr. President.”

“Ancient history, doctor, though, you must call me Henry. I’m not that…man anymore.”

Carrington nods once and looks back at Deacon, eyes intense. “There were grudges and differences brewing in The Enclave long before you ever arrived, so some of the soldiers were actually shooting at us and using you as an excuse to do so.

“Lieutenant Savoy fired at a group of us, at _me_ —the prick. We were all frozen in fear as the chaos whirled around us, we’d never… It was a plasma shot.—” _Oh,_ Deacon thinks, _you,_ and Carrington notes the look of realization, even in the room’s dim light. “—Yes. You shoved me out of the way and the shot hit the wall behind you, the splash of it catching you along your hip, burning through that useless leather armour and vault suit you had on.” 

Deacon remembers how it went. Remembers firing back with a laser rifle he’d picked off some other dead Enclave member, his own weapon long gone. Autumn let him have his clothes back on the President’s orders, but not his laser pistol nor his knife. Not that it mattered all that much really, he picked up better ones on his way to Eden’s chamber. He also remembers the _excruciating_ pain once the plasma hit his skin—

“Don’t touch it,” a man snapped next to him, “You’ll lose your fingers.” 

Jack’s hand had automatically pulled back, but he couldn’t be sure if it was the words or the simply the tone that did it. His skin felt like it was on fire and was starting to drip off his body like he had suddenly become a wax candle. He let out a scream of agony when the initial pain set in, but he’d since grit his teeth because logic had managed to filter enough through the pain to remind that there were still plenty of soldiers looking to kill him and he shouldn’t give away his position.

The man dragged Jack into a small office, and the lingering scent of antiseptic clinging to his white lab coat reminded Jack sharply of his dad. Anger fought its way to the surface then because Autumn was still alive and James was not and he wasn’t going to let that sonuvabitch finish off their family. The man shoved him onto a desk, sweeping it clear of papers and clutter as he barked at Jack to lie down. Jack couldn’t help the short scream when he straightened out on the desk, his muscles tearing and dissolving under the strain. 

There was nothing but the white-hot pain of it, his eyes scrunched closed and his hands clenched and beating the desk as he cursed everyone he could think of. He didn’t even realize that the man had splashed a large jar of purified water on the wound until the sharp sound of glass breaking made him start. The pain dulled suddenly, into the realm of tolerable and for that Jack was immensely grateful—of course, he was probably now crippled. Lovely.

“Alistair!” a woman called, a panicked note to her voice as she burst into the room, “What’re you doing?! We have to get out of here!”

“What does it look like?” the man, Alistair, snapped back, tossing another jar of purified water on Jack’s wound. This time he watched, the green goo of the plasma washing completely away and blood welling up like a spring in its place. Jack thought he was over his general squeamishness, but the sight of his pelvic bone peeking through the ruined mess of muscle and skin made him faint and he settled back on the table, trying to not vomit as his vision tunnelled and his ears filled with cotton. 

“Leave him,” the woman argued, “He’s dead anyways. If not now, then soon.”

“And if not for him, I’d be dead, so why don’t you shut up and do something useful, Brenda? Get Lieutenant Richter. We need some defense.”

There was a noise of defiance, but another voice, a different woman, agreed to the request and—

Deacon doesn’t remember much immediately after that, or really anything until he managed to make it to Eden’s control room. The man, Alistair, had given him a dose of Med-X to further dull the pain. He must have gotten a couple stims before Alistair wrapped him in gauze to protect the wound, but by the time he limped out of Raven Rock, modified FEV virus in hand, the wound had broken open again was bleeding profusely into the gauze. If Fawkes hadn’t chosen that moment to appear, minigun in hand, Deacon isn’t sure he would have made it back to Rivet City alive. (Dr. Li was furious when she found out that the wound was because he’d saved an Enclave doctor.)

“You don’t recognize me,” Carrington says. “Never recognized me.”

Deacon shakes his head. “To be fair, I’m not great with faces, I was in _a lot_ of pain, and Med-X messes with my ability to form memories, but…someone called you, Alistair?” He phrases it as a question because he’s not entirely sure if that’s right or a drug-addled dream, but Carrington nods. “I didn’t forget what you did for me, just that it was you, specifically.”

Carrington snorts and shakes his head, seemingly amused. “Well, you don’t look like you’ve suffered any ill effects. I expected you to limp for the rest of your life.”

“I did for a quite a while, but I was put on a very aggressive rehabilitation routine. Still, aches, though if I spend too long sleepin’ on the ground or if the temp drops dramatically.”

“My compliments to your doctor, then.”

Deacon sort of laughs. Li would not be impressed in the slightest by that high praise. Silence descends on them then and Carrington observes the room more closely, peering at the servers suspended all around them. The urge to write Amari a message has dimmed, somewhat, in light of this discovery, but the holotape is heavy in his hand and Deacon considers how to get the impending message to her as quickly as possible with Drummer Boy out of commission. Maybe he should stop in at Bunker Hill and send it through the courier service?

“Why?” Carrington asks abruptly. “After everything that happened, would you save his life? Surely you had no love for us.” Carrington shakes his head, looking angry. “So much death, and for what? Every bit of good we ever managed to create was lost to the Brotherhood and they never cared for the Capital beyond a grave they could rob.”

“Because he asked me to,” Deacon replies, wondering if Eden speeches about restoring the Wasteland weren’t just propaganda, but what he’d originally thought them to be.

“Truly?” JH asks, sounding somewhat surprised. “I had thought…”

“That I owed a debt? Well, I did, but…” Deacon shrugs looking down at the blank holotape in his hand and thinking of another. It wasn’t really that Eden had saved him from eternal suffering at Braun’s hands (as grateful as he was), but that he’d asked for a second chance and Deacon wanted to give it. He wanted to give it on the chance that Eden would live up to the ideal Deacon had built in his head.

“Thank you,” JH says, voice low. “I don’t think I ever said it because I thought that it was a debt repaid.”

“It was.”

“And yet, it wasn’t. That matters more.”

Carrington looks at Deacon then like he’s some puzzle that the doctor doesn’t have all the pieces to and Deacon half expects a question about why he’s even in Commonwealth, but instead, Carrington asks, “What is the point of this, then? Why set…Henry up here?” Carrington stumbles a moment over JH’s name, clearly wanting to call him ‘Mr. President’ again.

This time, the grin Deacon flashes Carrington is genuine. “With all their superior technology and staggering hubris, if there was one thing the Institute could fear what do you suppose that might be?” 

Carrington looks to the camera in the corner of the room and for the first time of their acquaintance, _laughs._

\- - - - -

Deacon writes a note or rather dictates one to JH who saves the text to the holotape after Carrington has returned downstairs. He much calmer than he was some twenty minutes ago, and manages the dictation with only a few pauses as he decides how much history to give up in order that Amari understands the very serious nature of the problem. Deacon hopes, _prays,_ that whatever leftover piece of Braun was rattling around in his brain was destroyed by Nick, or at the very least is still in there. 

“Do you have time to go to Bunker Hill?” JH asks, correctly deducing Deacon’s destination with Drummer out sick.

“I’m gonna have to make time.”

JH hums in agreement. “Then, you should have a more mundane reason for going there. Unless you trust this Courser?”

Deacon hesitates in answering because he finds that he doesn’t, even though he told Dez and Carrington that he trusted that Harkness had defected from The Institute. Maybe this is general paranoia over anyone learning more about his past that he’s willing to give up, despite Harkness knows enough from his own memories and whatever sort of data The Institute seems to keep on The Lone Wanderer that it makes such paranoia redundant. He’s being a little ridiculous about this he knows, after all, Harkness is the one with the reason not to trust _him,_ but...well, how many time has he tried to kill Deacon in the last month? Warranted or not, that doesn’t exactly lend itself to trust.

“Your obvious hesitation is answer enough. Have you an excuse in mind?”

Deacon is about to open his mouth to say that he hadn’t gotten that far in planning when an idea dawns on him and he glances at his safe. “Yeah, actually. I do.”

It takes a bit of scrounging to find some paper, tape, and string (for that old-timey charm), and find enough of it to make several layers of wrapping to protect his book from getting damaged on the trip. Then, he grabs a fusion cell and opens his safe, the _Wasteland Survival Guide_ and holotape just as he left them. Feeling a bit nostalgic, Deacon opens the cover to look at Moira’s handwriting, tracing the spikes of her ‘M’ before his gaze lands on the picture of him and James tapped to the other side. Deacon’s child self is grinning wide enough to split his face in half, proudly gripping his BB rifle as the baseball cap from Stanley slide off to the side, a bit too big for his head, while James laughs beside him at something Jonas said. 

Deacon frowns and closes the cover with a snap, nostalgia suddenly turning bitter. 

Still, he’s resolved to send the book to Nick. He did want to see it after all, and it’s an excuse for going to Bunker Hill. Once wrapped, it’ll just be another rectangle package that he could have any number of reasons for wanting to send to Nick—Harkness doesn’t have to know that’s it’s an emotional one instead of a Railroad one. Once it’s wrapped and tied, Deacon scrawls Nick’s address on it. Then he pulls the holotape from the safe and turns it in his hand wondering what to do with it, he can’t leave it in the safe since, given the progress of the room, Jolene will quickly need the space. So, what to do with it because he doesn’t want it tooling around his pocket—irony of that isn’t lost on him.

“Would you like me to store the data on that?” JH asks.

“I…Alright. Just don’t—don’t play it.” Deacon moves to plug the holotape in. “I don’t want to hear his voice again.”

JH wisely says nothing but a murmur of agreement. As he’s downloading the audio file, Jolene bursts into the room. “Please tell me you didn’t freak out too badly,” she says in a rush.

Deacon hold ups up his pointer and thumb, measuring out a small distance. “Just a little bit, but hey this was the whole point of it. Though, next time, warn a guy, yeah?”

She looks relieved and nods, smiling sheepishly. “So, what do you think?”

“Well, once I got past the initial shock, I was damn impressed. I mean look at this place.” Deacon sweeps an arm around in the tight space. “I’ve cleared out my safe so feel free to chuck the rest of the knickknacks in here in some storage closet on one of the lower levels. I officially give up claim on this room”

“You don’t have to,” JH tells him

“Kinda do, pal. I remember the size of your old server room and this in a drop in the bucket.”

“I glad that you’ve said that,” Jolene replies, “because I was a bit hesitant about just kicking you out.”

“Kick away.”

Jolene takes a seat in the desk chair. “Nick brought by your radio dishes a few days ago, so do I get to hear about this project of yours now?”

Deacon grins. “Yep. I hope you aren’t going to hate me too much for asking, but I don’t have time to do it myself right now. Do you know how to build an amplifier to turn radio signals into data that can be interpreted by a computer?”

“No? I mean I understand the principal of the thing, but I’ve never had occasion to build something like that.”

“Well, now you do! Huzzah for learning!” Deacon explains that he wants to set up the radio dishes he scrounged on the roof of Ticon and have JH use them to scan for radio signals. “Maybe we could get a drop on Institute baddies.”

“Institute channels are encrypted.”

“Well, yeah, but Tinker is a genius with that kinda stuff and his only real barrier to cracking it is a lack of data. Plus, we don’t have to hear what they’re saying to get a fix on their location.”

Jolene appears to warm to the idea and she considers it. “Well, we probably couldn’t find a Courser like that but Gen 1s and Gen 2s travel in groups and their digital chatter could be tracked.”

“As could other kinds of radio chatter,” JH adds, seeming to understand that Deacon’s end goal isn’t necessarily Institute-driven and Deacon nods in agreement.

“You don’t have to do this, Jolene. You can set it aside and I’ll work on it when I’m done trainin’.”

“And when will that be?”

Deacon shrugs. “Sometime next year.”

“No,” Jolene replies with a shake of her head. “That’s too long to wait. I’ve practically stopped being assigned runs in order to look after Henry, anyways. You’ve brought all the supplies, so I’m sure between the two of us we’ll figure out how to set it up.” 

\- - - - -

August 21, 2285

RE: Possible problem

Zhivago,

Remember that little incident with me and the ML earlier in the year? The one that you boxed my ear for? Well, I have bad news. That little bit of whatever that was hitchhiking in my brain may have jumped ship into your system. I know that sounds impossible, but that piece? Well, it spent roughly 200 years in a similarly designed system and would probably be right at home in your set up.

Please, please, PLEASE do a thorough check and make sure there aren’t any anomalies. The thought that it might do to someone else what it did to me is legitimate nightmare material, even worse if it got FULL control of a package. I should’ve thought of this possibility sooner, but unfortunately, I’m not that smart. For our sakes, let’s hope I’m just my usual, paranoid self. 

Deacon

//

August 21, 2285

RE: Project Chit-Chat

Reporting agents: Tinker Tom, High Rise, & Deacon

Typist: High Rise

Overall, we believe that the conversation between agent Jolene and tourist Harkness was more productive than not. We didn’t manage to glean much in the way of strategic operations of I., but information about both the BoS and a few compromised routes in the C.W. was revealed (how up to date the later is, must be discussed with Watts).

Deacon and Tom think that there are certain levels of classification within the I. and the greater freedoms are assigned to the F.U.Y.D. tech as opposed to regular packages in what they can reveal. Possibly because they aren’t supposed to go rogue. (We, of course, can’t confirm with the agents due to their restrictions.) [I tried Dez, but the ‘blink once for yes, ‘twice for no’, doesn’t work. -Deacon] {Next step is electroshock. -TT}

All of Tom’s data has been downloaded onto several holotapes for further analyze, and a transcript of the conversation is attached. Carrington, Tom, Whispers, and Bell will return to HQ tomorrow. Deacon and Harkness head back to Tourist Trap in the morning. 

-High Rise with Tinker Tom and Deacon

P.S. Drummer Boy is down with the flu, message runs will be delayed for upwards of a week.

//

August 29, 2285

Message routed through Switchboard to Tourist Trap.

*

August 26, 2285

RE: Possible problem

Deacon, 

As per your request, I scoured the system and found no evidence of any lingering anomaly, save for a blimp the system recorded shortly after you exited. That in of itself is hardly evidence, given the rather brutal nature of your experience—one that was a first in my experience. I will remain vigilant, however, and up my security protocols and screening measures.

-Zhivago

//

September 29, 2285

Jolene, 

Please forward the secondary message on this holotape to Henry. You can understand why it couldn’t be addressed directly to him.

Carrington

*

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Henry, 

I’m not sure how much of your previous knowledge made the transfer between...then and now, as I’m not even sure how Deacon or you managed it in the first place; however, if you have any data on remaining on ‘Project Hallows’ I would appreciate having access to it. I’ve hit a preverbal wall in my experiments and need some direction and my old notes would be of great help.

Carrington

//

October 2, 2285

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Dr. Carrington, 

I’m afraid that data on all projects was left behind due to space restrictions. Had I more time I would have had copies made. At the very least, you may rest assured that BoS did not get a hold of it. 

If you ever need someone to look over your notes or check calculations, I would be pleased to help. A second set of eyes may be of use.

All the best,

Henry

//

October 8, 2285

Jolene,

Please forward secondary message to Henry.

Carrington

*

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

What I need is a proper lab and a terminal that doesn’t crash once a day. Until that miracle happens, I’ve included all my notes on a second holotape. I’m sick of looking at them.

Carrington

//

October 14, 2285

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Dr. Carrington,

I’ve gone over your notes and calculations with the help of Jolene (she’s quite a brilliant engineer) and while your calculations on the wavelength frequency of the S.B. field are flawless, we wonder if you aren’t considering the wrong area. Perhaps instead of changing the frequency of the field, you should focus on bending the light more effectively and thus use less power and lessen detrimental side-effects. 

Jolene has drawn up schematics for a device I believe they used in the I. for the ‘F.U.Y.D. tech’ (I believe the drawing in the corner is supposed to be one of them), though she cannot tell me that for sure. Parts may be hard to come by, however. She included a list of workarounds for those things that you may not find. Perhaps Tinker Tom can assist you in building it? He seems to have the technical capabilities. 

Schematics are included with holotape that has your notes. We’ve made comments were appropriate. 

Warm regards,

Henry

//

October 15, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Sly Nicholas and Desdemona

Deacon this is a formal request for Mender be assigned to Augusta once training has been completed.

-Rave

//

October 16, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Sly Nick & Dez

No.

-Deacon

//

October 17, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Sly Nicholas and Desdemona

Let me rephrase that, Deacon. Mender will be assigned to Augusta after training.

-Rave

//

October 18, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Sly Nick & Dez

Still no. 

-Deacon

//

October 23, 2285

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Schematics are appreciated, Jolene. Construction underway now. Will advise on how well it works in testing. (Providing Tom doesn’t blow the damn thing up.

Carrington

//

October 25, 2285

RE: Allen progress report

The merc rewrite you sent is currently on his way down to N.Y. with Lazlo and Sandbox and blazing a trail for us to that state.

Resources are tight and salvaging efforts have been limited. (There’s fuck all around here except radstags.) But we’ve found a bunker nearby that looks promising. 

It’s boring as shit down here, so tell Deacon to hurry up with training. I need to get back to doing heavy stuff. This ‘senior agent’ bullshit sucks. 

-Glory

P.S. Gerald says to send some crop seeds, he’s found some space for an indoor garden.

//

November 1, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Rave

Deacon, what are your reservations? Rave informs us that Mender was recruited personally by Blackbird, and has two years as a tourist before deciding to become a full-time agent. Blackbird swears by his loyalty. Please advise further.

-Desdemona (with Sly Nicholas)

//

November 5, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Rave

I don’t trust him, Dez. There something...off about him. I haven’t been unable to determine to my satisfaction that he IS loyal. I know they need a doctor, but so does Ticon, Stanwix, Griswold, and Herkimer. Augusta is too important to send a dodgy agent to, even if he does know medicine. 

I STRONGLY recommend against assigning him to any large safehouse.

-Deacon

//

November 10, 2285

RE: Tourist “Mender”

CC: Deacon

Rave, 

Let’s put off deciding this until the tourists are fully trained. Perhaps, by then, Deacon will have found something a little more concrete one way or the other.

-Sly Nicholas

//

November 28, 2285

RE: Survival training

CC: Augusta & Ticon

HQ, 

I’m taking my group of tourists east for some extended survival training. I don’t expect to be back to Tourist Trap until February and will be incommunicado (since I don’t imagine you’ll need to send a runner to find us) for that time. Will send a message once we’re back. 

-Deacon

//

December 12, 2285

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Henry and Jolene, 

Tom is having trouble stabilizing the S.L.M., resulting in explosions of various sizes as it destabilizes the S.B. field (much to my dismay). I’ve included Tom’s observation data. Any possible solutions are welcome, S.B’s don’t grow on trees.

Carrington

//

December 22, 2285

RE: Salus aegroti suprema lex

Dr. Carrington,

Jolene and I have analyzed the data you included and have come up with a few suggestions as to what might be the problem. Jolene has also made a list of possible materials that could be interfering with the S.B’s field. You likely already know this, but just in case. 

Good luck,

Henry

//

December 24, 2285

Helios, 

Deacon forwarded your message. You should’ve said something sooner, you thick-headed moron. Rave is quite angry and I can’t say my mood is much better. However, it is Christmas, or soon will be, so I’ve sent you a copy of the D.C. Medical Journal that I purchased last year and have annotated. Deacon says you’re a decent doctor, perhaps it will help you become a good one.

Carrington

//

> December 30: Sent to us from Ticon. Hold until Deacon returns from survival trip. And no, you can’t try it on “just to see”. —Dutchman

December 24, 2285

Deacon,

Ellie and I had this made for you—that old bomber of yours has got to be shredded by now. Chuck’s convinced it’s his best work.

Merry Christmas, kid.

Nick and Ellie

P.S. Check the left inside pocket.

//

January 4, 2286

Carrington,

I already am a good doctor. (Deacon’s still alive, isn’t he?) But thank you for the book.

Helios.

//

February 2, 2286

RE: Survival training.

CC: Augusta & Ticon

HQ,

We’re back at Tourist Trap. Agents are ready for assignments. Three want further training for heavy status. Details are included in a separate file.

-Deacon

P.S. I didn’t see my shadow today. Early spring!

//

February 7, 2286

RE: Agent Assignments

CC: Augusta, Dayton, Griswold, Herkimer, Randolph, Stanwix, Ticonderoga, Tourist Trap

Allen,

Tourists in training are now full agents, ready for assignments. Details about strengths are included on this holotape. Take as many as you think you’ll need. The rest can be assigned to any safehouse as needed.

Three agents wish for heavy training. Glory please take either Bullet or Naughty Nancy to replace you at Allen. Magpie has strengths in stealth. Tommy Whispers or Blackbird, please pick her up for training.

Lastly, the Courser who defected known as Harkness is to be classified as a heavy without further training. After much discussion with senior agents, I’ve decided to assign him directly to HQ. 

Note: Agent Mender is currently unavailable for assignment. There is still discussion about where to send him. 

-Sly Nicholas

//

February 9, 2286

Nick & Ellie,

The coat is awesome-sauce! Thanks. Only wish I had it last month. Tell Charlie I concur with the genius of his work. (Everyone is dreadfully jealous.)

Deacon <3

//

February 10, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Deacon

Sly Nicholas,

I stand by what I said last year. I want Mender assigned to Augusta.

-Rave

//

February 11, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Rave

And I stand by what I said last year, Sly Nick. I STRONGLY recommend against it.

-Deacon

//

February 12, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Deacon

Deacon was supposed to provide evidence of his disloyalty. Blackbird recruited him as a tourist and I vetted him for training. Two agents vouching for him against one. 

-Rave

//

February 16, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Rave

Deacon, 

Have you any evidence that Mender cannot be trusted? Is he the infiltrator that the Minutemen warned of?

-Sly Nicholas

//

February 19, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Rave

Sly Nick,

The only proof I have is a gut feeling that the guy is bad news. He’s done nothing to make me suspect him of being disloyal, but he’s not right. I CANNOT stress this enough. 

As to whether he’s Bones? Well, he’s nothing like that doctor. He’s kind of a prick sometimes, but he’s not the same cold, unfeeling, monster. I mean, unless he’s a world class actor, I don’t think we’re dealing with the same guy, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t a threat.

Look, I was supposed to be trusted with sussing out potential recruit problems, right? So, trust me on this.

-Deacon

//

February 20, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Deacon

Sly Nicholas,

Blackbird reports that Mender always went above and beyond the duties of a tourist and is very committed to our cause. It was the reason I okayed him training to be an agent, I never saw anything in him other than a genuine desire to help.

Deacon is an excellent agent, but perhaps in telling him to actively look for disloyalty, he’s found it where none exists because he was supposed to find it. (Ironically it's the agent we’ve vouched for and not the Courser.)

August NEEDS a doctor and it can’t be Carrington’s responsibility to visit us every couple of months and work day and night for several days to get us back on our feet. It’s hard on us and on him.

This matter must be resolved in our favour.

-Rave

//

February 25, 2286

RE: Agent Mender

CC: Deacon

Rave,

There has been much discussion among Desdemona, Carrington, and I on this subject. After holding a vote, we’ve determined 2 to 1 to assign Mender to Augusta. You may send an agent to collect him from Tourist Trap.

*

Deacon,

Please return to HQ for reassignment.

-Sly Nicholas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> F.U.Y.D. tech = fuck up your day tech, as Deacon so eloquently called Coursers that first time through the Switchboard. I like the idea that all agents use that code for Coursers. 
> 
> Somehow, I feel like the Enclave just produces sarcastic and cranky doctors. Hello Arcade.
> 
> And yes, Amari has an actual code name…not that anyone really uses it save for official communiqué. Also, Clockwork is Arturo.
> 
> We’re almost done, people! Next chapter picks up in 2287!


	27. Stay in line and everything’ll be a-oh-fucking-kay.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Our wills and fates do so contrary run_   
>  _that our devices still are overthrown;_   
>  _our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own._
> 
> _-Hamlet (3.2.208)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don’t subscribe to the main series or [follow me on Tumblr](https://katrinajg.tumblr.com), you might not know that I posted a short story a week and a bit ago about [Ellie’s run for mayor.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10225397/chapters/22690808) While by no means mandatory reading, there are something that will be talked about in this and subsequent chapters that draw from that fic.

After an hour or so of wandering the outskirts of Lexington, Deacon makes his way to the Slocum’s Joe. The town is beginning to get its feral population back after the tourists had wiped them out back in the fall of 2285. Deacon thinks that the radioactivity of the old Corvega plant on the hill is what draws them to this place, and for the most part, agents keep them clear of the streets around Slocum’s Joe. There’s another group of raiders that have lately taken the plant, and Deacon thinks that he’ll have to take a group of agents to clear them out sooner rather than later. Hopefully, Glory is back from Dayton and they can go together. He’s pretty tired of having to kill raiders, but Glory usually makes the whole exercise entertaining. 

In the basement of the donut shop, Deacon pushes the button hidden at the back of the bookcase, near the third shelf and it swings forward, revealing the elevator. He pauses a moment to listen for any activity upstairs, before pushing the intercom button. 

“Code.”

“Hamilton,” Deacon replies and behind the metal doors of the elevator, he can hear the car begin to rise. He isn’t sure if this latest code is an homage to the founding father Alexander Hamilton, or if it’s something more mundane like the name of a treasured pet.

There’s a ding and the doors slide open. Deacon steps inside and hits the button to take him back down to the bottom. As the doors slide closed, the bookcase swings back into place, concealing the elevator once again. 

He’s just returned from a joint mission with Augusta, specifically Blackbird and Johnny Be-Good, to wipe out a group Gen 1s and 2s east of Bunker Hill. It’s the fourth group of synths they’ve wiped out since the beginning of the year on JH’s recommendation. Well, technically on P.A.M.’s but it’s JH intel that gets run through her probability matrix, under the guise, of course, of Jolene. It’s a little convoluted, but so far it seems to be working. It’s taken JH the better part of the last year to discern the encrypted signal that Gen 1s and 2s use to communicate with one another. Thankfully, it was significantly easier to crack it than it was to find and since then, they’ve been successfully hunting the synths and hopefully messing with whatever mission the Institute has sent them to complete. 

As for locating Coursers with such ease, Deacon isn’t holding out any hope. Jolene was right about it being impossible to locate them. They don’t communicate in the same way that the Gen 1s and 2s do, and likely don’t spend as much time in the Commonwealth, so trying to find them is like looking for a needle in a haystack. JH is still attempting to, regardless, but Deacon suspects that they won’t get a lead on a way to track down Coursers until they stumble across and manage to kill another one for its chip. 

As the elevator descends, Deacon rolls his neck and shoulders. Every muscle in his body is tight and sore from a scuffle with a Gen 2 that managed to catch him off guard and it took him an embarrassingly long time to finally kill the thing. Mostly because his plasma pistol had been knocked from his grasp and a knife is no good against one of those things. Finally, Blackbird managed to kick his pistol within range of his hands, but not before he got a pretty good beating. 

Thankfully, his vest kept him from getting any broken ribs or punctured internal organs, but even with that protection he’s bruised from one end to the other, cuts all over his face and hands, had his shoulder yanked from his socket, and his one knee is all fucked up. He had to talk Blackbird and Johnny Be-good through a traction-counter traction technique to get his shoulder relocated properly through gritted teeth. (Thanks to his dad’s ever paranoia about the Deacon getting his arm caught in some piece of machinery in the vault he knows several different ways to relocate a shoulder.) Even with the stimpak he took, everything aches and as much as he’s not looking forward to being lectured by Carrington, Deacon needs to stop by and get his shoulder and knee looked at before he heads out again. Not for the first time since he’s taken on a more traditional heavy roll, Deacon wondered just how crippled he’s going be in another twenty years, assuming of course, that he even manages to live that long. 

The elevator rolls to a stop and Deacon steps out into the Switchboard. Beatrice Bell is on access duty and greets him with a, “You look like hell.”

“Feel it too.”

“What happened?”

“Got jumped by a Gen 2. This—” Deacon makes a circle motion around his bruised face, “—is what happens when you forget the first rule of an ambush: always check your six.” He tells her the truth because she’s been getting lots of runs lately with Augusta and Ticon and Deacon doesn’t want her to run with the assumption that anything they do is easy or safe, not even for the heavies. “Otherwise the ambusher becomes the ambushee.”

Bell gives a commiserating shake of her head. “I’ll remember that.” 

Deacon nods and moves on. 

It’s after supper time and he’s starving, but Deacon weighs his continued pain against food and decides to stop in to see Carrington first before going to the kitchen. Once he makes an appearance in the main observation area, he’ll have a hard time escaping the debriefing and whatnot and while he can talk and eat, he can’t eat and get medical attention. Deacon’s old hat at this routine now having spent all of 2286 running similar clearing missions and then arriving back for his debrief and next assignment.

It’s been a great time, logistically speaking, for the Railroad. Package movement is at an all time high, communication is strong between the safehouses, hardly any late messages or missed communique. Agent loss is down and tourist recruitment is up, so much so that Deacon thinks Sly Nick and Dez will set up another training session in the next month or so. Maybe he’ll volunteer to run it again, it wasn’t so bad the last time, and he’d really like to get off these baddie killing missions. Hell, he’s at the point where he’s seriously considering telling them that he wants to go back to covert missions. 

The whole of last year has been one smooth-sailing, hunky dory, everything turning up roses period of time that Deacon is starting feel like a world of hurt is heading their way. There’s just no way that things can be this good, for this long and not have a wheel fly off somewhere along the way. So far nothing has come of Mender, Bones is nowhere to be seen, and the only thing that the Railroad has to worry about lately is the encroaching Gunners on Quincy. There’s been talk of evacuating that safehouse in the summer if The Minutemen continue to do nothing to drive them back, and even Vera is talking about moving way. Possibly to Goodneighbour, or even Diamond City if Ellie finally gets that anti-ghoul decree abolished. 

Carrington is staring hatefully at his terminal when Deacon shuffles into his clinic. When he turns, he looks as if he’s about to tell Deacon to leave him alone with words significantly harsher than that, but his gaze goes immediately calculating once he takes in Deacon’s superficial injuries. He gestures for Deacon to take a seat on the gurney, and swivels away from the desk.

“Well, what happened this time?”

“Gen 2 with a mean right hook,” Deacon tells him and catalogues a laundry list of injuries that he’d suffered for his own idiocy. 

Carrington immediately starts digging for his hand-held x-ray machine, yanking open the drawer of the filing cabinet that acts as his medical equipment’s home. Deacon pulls off his coat and then vest, his damaged shoulder not liking the movement in the least, and once Carrington finds his machine, he takes a picture of Deacon’s shoulder to check for the extent of the damage. 

The radiation from the machine is hot against his skin and Carrington asks, almost as an afterthought, “What are your levels like?”

“If I still had a Pip-boy, I’d gladly let you know, doc.”

Carrington makes a noise of annoyance at Deacon’s lack of self-monitoring and then switches to take a picture of Deacon’s knee. When he’s finished looking at the two, he puts the machine away and pulls out a small, palm-sized device to check Deacon’s radiation levels from a small prick of blood. Carrington sets it aside to work, it usually takes about five minutes or so for the Rad Detector to process, and starts poking and feeling around Deacon’s previously dislocated shoulder.

“There’s no bone damage,” Carrington tells him, “in either place, so I imagine that muscles are bruised and your knee had a torn ligament. You repaired that initial damage with the stim, but you since you didn’t rest like you should’ve to allow your body to heal itself, you’ve aggravated the fresh repairs.” He gives Deacon a hard look. “Why didn’t you stay at Augusta?”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in that place these days.” 

While nothing has come of Mender and Deacon’s warnings (and sometimes it feels like his judgement about others is considered somewhat less reliable in the face of that) on the few occasions Deacon had met Mender on a run, he still had that uneasy feeling of something being off with the guy. He made High Rise promise him that Mender was to never step foot in or know of Ticonderoga’s location, and though that probably strained relations with Augusta, HR had so far kept his word. Deacon prays there will never be a cause to break it. Like some sort of medical emergency at Ticon. 

Carrington just makes a noise of acknowledgement and crouches to get a better angle for checking Deacon’s knee, double checking his initial assessment of the situation. Deacon was never officially told who voted for and who voted against Mender’s placement at Augusta, but Deacon has a feeling it was Carrington who had backed his recommendation. Not that he knows why. He sort of figured that being friends with Rave would have cinched that vote.

When Carrington stands again he peers at Deacon’s face, specifically his black eye, visible even around his sunglasses. “Are there any other injuries that I need to look at?”

“Only bruises. Nothing serious.”

Carrington nods and pulls out a stim. He injects half into the tissue around Deacon’s knee and the rest into the meat of his shoulder. Already the pain starts to lessen as the stim repairs the damage, but he expects to be incredibly stiff tomorrow morning. Then, Carrington picks up the Rad Detector and makes a face at the screen. “You’re up around 500 rads.”

“Huh. That’s kinda high,” Deacon notes, thinking he probably got a pretty good does a couple weeks ago when he got caught out in a radiation storm for about a half-hour before he managed to get to Goodneighbour. He probably should’ve got a RadAway from Amari then, but he knows that when the walls start melting and a strange whispering voice starts scratching in his ear that he’s somewhere in the high 800s and then it’s _definitely_ time for some RadAway. Anything below that he generally forgets about getting radiated. Not the best thing, granted, but somehow, he manages to keep his levels in check. He hasn’t been in the 800s for about seven, eight years.

“Kind of high? Most people would be vomiting and possibly losing hair and skin by now,” Carrington says, with slight incredulity. It never ceases to annoy or maybe confound the him that Deacon seems to be immune to the side-effects of ionizing radiation. 

“You should know by now that I’m not most people,” Deacon replies with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows as Carrington starts prepping for a RadAway treatment. He could leave and wait until he hit 600 rads just to watch Carrington’s eyes pop out of their sockets, but it’s probably best for his own safety that he just submit to the treatment. After all, there’s only a few hundred between him and that no-go zone, and that can disappear pretty quick in the Wastes.

After Carrington has set him up on a drip that’ll take about 15 minutes to empty the bag (which will wipe Deacon out for the about the next 12 hours because, for all his seeming immunity, RadAway crushes him), he takes a seat again in his desk chair and frowns at Deacon. Though, to be honest, his expression really hasn’t shifted out of ‘somewhat pissed off’ Deacon’s entire visit.

“Why?” Carrington asks, harshly. Like the simple asking has to be drug bodily from him. 

“Why what?”

Carrington makes an impatient gesture with his hand. “Why are you like this? Only ghouls have this sort of…immunity.”

Deacon knows Carrington has been dying to know ever since he found out that Deacon doesn’t get sick or suffer any of symptoms normally associated with radiation poisoning, but he hasn’t outright asked in all the time they’ve known each other. It’s been one big game of waiting to see who cracks first, and Deacon suspects that if they hadn’t met that one time before all this, Carrington never would have.

“Children of Atom can be immune to radiation,” Deacon replies, purposefully obtuse.

Carrington glares at him. “And are you a member of that…church?” 

Deacon shakes his head and then twirls a finger next to his temple. “They’re kinda weird. Plus, I don’t have immunity. Radiation’ll kill me as surely as it will you.” Well… _probably._ He did survive the radiation in the purifier chamber, but he’s pretty sure that was a fluke. 

“Will it?” Carrington asks, echoing Deacon’s thoughts. “I’m not so sure. And that’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you asked.”

“No. I asked why are you like this?”

“How much time have ya got?” Deacon puts on his best story-telling voice. “See, it started when I was small and my dad took me away from the irradiated hellhole that was our mutual home and hid us away in a vault—”

“ _Deacon,_ ” Carrington snaps.

Deacon holds up one hand in surrender, laughing slightly. “Alright, alright. Long story short, failed experiment.”

A dark look slides over the doc’s face. “Brotherhood?”

“Nope. A friend of mine. She wanted to find a way to clear radiation levels and it resulted in a—” he holds his thumb and forefinger a small distance apart and says the exact words Moira did all those years ago, “—a teeny, tiny…um, mutation. It kinda rendered her homemade RadAway a bust.” Deacon shrugs.

“Almost all RadAway is ‘homemade’ these days.”

“Well, yeah, but you know how hard it is to find glowing fungus and most people don’t know how to cultivate it properly, so it’s not exactly somethin’ that the average Waster can create. She wanted to make somethin’ that everyone could, but it turned out to cause serious organ failure as well as remove radiation. I got off lucky.”

Carrington’s frown lessens. “You volunteered.”

“Sure did.”

Carrington shakes his head. “That was reckless and stupid. She should’ve tested it on dogs first. And you should be more diligent about clearing your levels. You could end up ghoulified or worse if you continue to neglect them.”

Deacon nods. “Probably.”

“I’m not looking for vague assertions, Deacon. I will schedule monthly check-ups if you don’t look after yourself.”

“Aw, doc. I knew you cared.”

“I care, in so much as, I’ve put too many hours into your health to allow you to continue to abuse it. I hate waste.”

Deacon looks at the scowl on Carrington’s face and wonders if it is just that. Wonders if it isn’t more than that, wonders if it doesn’t have something to do with the Lone Wanderer. That’s not what he wants from Carrington. He doesn’t want to be considered important for what he did in the past.

He looks at his hands and says, “Don’t do that.”

“Do what? Be a doctor? Care more for your health than you do?”

“Don’t care about my health because of…before.”

Carrington sniffs. “I’ll do as I please and if nothing else, comfort yourself with the fact that you’re a useful agent and worth keeping around. Now, be quiet. I have work to do.” He turns back to his terminal and Deacon sighs. 

By the time Carrington sets him free, the RadAway is already doing a number on Deacon’s ability to stay awake and he hasn’t yet had food. He almost considers going straight to bed but drags himself to the kitchen for something quick to eat. Dez finds him eating brahmin jerky and dry Sugar Bombs and before she even opens her mouth Deacon tells her that he’s in no shape for a debrief. 

“Just got a RadAway treatment and I’m about two seconds from falling aslee—” he interrupts himself with a wide yawn. “—asleep. Tomorrow. We can talk tomorrow.”

“Alright,” she agrees with a small smile and helps drag him to his bed when it genuinely seems like he’s about to fall asleep at the table. 

He awakens an indeterminate amount of time later not feeling especially refreshed, and when he moves to get out of bed, all of his muscles protest loudly to being used and he has to pause a moment to recover before he tries to move again. This time slower as he eases himself out of bed. His muscles will work themselves loose in a couple of days, and even by the end of today the worst of the stiffness will have eased through movement. Deacon stretches his shoulders and neck out as he half walks, half hobbles back to the kitchen, favouring his one knee slightly. 

In the main area of the Switchboard, there’s the requisite gathering of agents, discussing current or past missions, raider numbers, Institute synth numbers, P.A.M.’s latest projections, and the requisite morbid joke or two to get over the latest nightmare inducing run. In the kitchen, Deacon helps himself to what was yesterday’s supper (he’d avoided it yesterday because he didn’t have the energy to heat it up) and sets it to warm on a hot plate. There are a couple of agents in the kitchen eating, and Deacon asks the first agent to join him at the counter what time it is. The agent, Kelly K., tells him it’s a little after noon, and man, he slept a long time. It’s his own fault, he knows, the lower level of radiation, the less down time with a RadAway, that’s just standard operating procedure. No one gets away from a RadAway dose hunky dory.

This time when Desdemona finds him in the kitchen, Deacon gives his report of the synths he, Blackbird, and Johnny Be-Good wiped out, his unflattering moment of being caught off guard by one of them, and praises the intel of ‘Jolene’ six ways from Sunday. He wants the Railroad to trust the tips and information coming from Ticon about this kind of stuff, so that if JH comes across something really bad, there will be immediate action on it, and not a humming and hawing over whether or not the intel is creditable. 

“You sound tired,” Dez notes as Deacon sits down to eat his rewarmed food: some seasoned brahmin, probably courtesy of Old Man Stockton, and InstaMash, which isn’t as good as actual tatoes, but it’ll do in a pinch.

“RadAway does that,” Deacon agrees, but Dez shakes her head. 

“No, tired of these typical heavy missions.”

Deacon almost snorts. Tired doesn’t even _begin_ to describe it. He shrugs instead, neither agreeing or disagreeing with that assessment. “You got somethin’ specific in mind?” he asks after a moment when Desdemona doesn’t elaborate. 

She doesn’t answer. “When was the last time you were at Ticon?”

“Couple months.”

“Augusta?”

Deacon does snort this time, Dez is well aware of his refusal to go on runs to that safehouse. 

“Yeah, I figured,” she concedes, “Both High Rise and Rave sent us messages a week ago now about some Gunners setting up shop in the GreeneTech Genetics building.”

Both of his eyebrows raise in surprise. This is news to him. He hadn’t known that the Gunners had pushed this far north. “Numbers?” he asks. This could be very bad for the security of Ticon and Augusta. 

“More than we can handle, though neither High Rise or Rave have exact numbers. We need some better intel, and an idea of how long they plan to stick around, and if they’ll start claiming other buildings in the area.” She doesn’t say outright that they want him to do it, she’s feeling her way around his thoughts on the idea. Dez knows that he swore off infiltration and covert work, but she’s hoping that he might decide to help regardless. 

Deacon isn’t sure if he should jump at the opportunity like a starved wolf on a brahmin, or be a _bit_ more casual about the whole thing. He finishes off his plate and then pushes it to the side. “Alright,” he says, with a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ll go to Ticon and come up with an infiltration plan.”

“We don’t need you deep cover,” Dez warns like she’s trying to make it clear that they aren’t going to ask more of him than a simple infiltration. “We only need intel on their plans. In and out, Dee. Nothing special.”

“Don’t be a hero, got it.” He gives her a grin.

She gives him a look that says she isn’t convinced. “I’ll let Rave know to pull back their agents. We need this intel yesterday. Runs are currently compromised at both locations, so do your best to be quick.”

“10-4 dubber rucky.”

\- - - - -

Deacon slips out of the Switchboard before word of his new mission reaches Carrington. He knows that the doctor will tell him to wait a day or two to heal properly before making the trek down to Cambridge, and that would probably be a good idea, but he can rest at Ticon. It’ll probably take him a day or so put together whatever plan he comes up with on the walk. 

Gunners are, as a whole, suspicious and untrusting, and have brutal initiation rituals that often crush new members. Former raiders usually come out of it strong because of previous experience with gangs, but the strict nature of organization and leadership within the group is usually what cracks them. Anyone who survives both aspects of that becomes another dangerous member of the Gunners. They aren’t as organized or as well-trained as someone from The Brotherhood, but they do follow a lot of Old-World military traditions are very, very difficult to defeat in a head-on confrontation (as The Minutemen know all too well). The best way to take them out is through the heavy use of traps, ambushes, and stealth boys. Divide and conquer. 

Since this is an infiltration mission only at this point, Deacon turns his brain to figuring out a plausible reason for stumbling into the Gunners’ new territory that won’t end up with him getting shot. Or at least, not fatally. He gives Augusta a wide birth, heading east over by Wattz Consumer Electrons and then down toward Ticonderoga, that way he’ll avoid GreeneTech as well. The sun is practically set by the time Deacon arrives at Ticon, a plan mostly formed in his mind, and he gives the hidden camera at the entrance a grin before stepping inside and heading for the elevator. High Rise meets him when the elevator drops him off on the main floor. 

“Deacon, good to see you, man. HQ send you to help with our problem?”

“Yep. I might even have a plan too, though maybe I could get something to eat while I explain it?”

High Rise turns and waves him along, heading to the kitchen. “Sure, sure. Codsworth made an awesome casserole. We’ve all eaten, but he’d be happy to warm something up for you.”

“Indeed, Sir!” Codsworth chirps from where he’s pruning the hubflower in the living area. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Thanks, Jeeves,” Deacon says as he takes a seat at the kitchen table.

Jolene comes bounding over from her workshop a moment later. “I’ve totally revamped the server connections and made huge progress with speed and CPU usage,” she tells him in lieu of a hello. Which is about par for the course. She’s usually so excited to tell him about her newest addition to JH’s system that she forgets about pesky things like manners (who needs them, anyway?). No one else around Ticon really cares much about technological genius that Jolene employs on a regular basis, expect of course JH himself, so she’s usually bursting for an opportunity to show off.

“Yeah? No more weirdly slow speech from our A.I. overlord? He must appreciate that, right JH?” Deacon gives the camera in the corner of the kitchen a grin and hears a low noise of amusement from the speaker. He turns his attention back to Jolene. “What about that glitch in the wireless cameras? Infrared still a no go?”

Jolene makes a noise of frustration and slumps into one of the chairs at the table. “I don’t know what’s causing it! Still! I’ve checked all the circuitry, the transmitter, everything I can think of. I’m starting to think it’s because I don’t have a proper program to translate the data, even though Henry says that’s not the problem.”

“I assure you,” JH says, his voice carrying strangely in the space; an adjustment to the speaker’s levels might help with that, “it’s not.”

Deacon shrugs. “He’d know, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh right, like the way he knew about the amplifier not processing the radio signals properly and causing a weird warble in the output that he couldn’t detect.” Jolene stares at the camera. 

“That was a different situation,” JH begins, a slightly annoyed tone in his voice. Jolene brings up that particular failure on JH’s part whenever she needs to make a point that he isn’t infallible when it comes to diagnosing his own problems. “I had to write new programming to detect the frequency of range of the Gen 1 and 2 synths, and as with all new programming, there is always bugs. In this case, my original programming for cameras is flawless.”

Jolene makes a noise of disbelief and Deacon snorts. He’s pretty sure that JH has never had anyone challenge him on this regular a basis. It’s good for him. Forces him to think carefully and thoroughly through all his knowledge and check it for flaws and errors like any bit of programming. Deacon only wishes he could be here more often to challenge that knowledge from before, to be present and make sure that none of those old ideas and ideal aren’t bleeding through to the present, but in his stead, Jolene is rocking it. As per usual.

“Okay, okay,” High Rise says with a serious expression that is fighting to be a smile. “Even I’ve heard this argument at least twice before. No need to rehash it again. Dee’s here to check up on our Gunner problem, so let the man talk.”

Just then, Codsworth bustles over with some wonderful smelling casserole, that is admittedly mostly a gruel-ly mush from being reheated, but tastes fantastic so he doesn’t even bother to look twice between huge mouthfuls. After some of it has settled his hunger, Deacon explains his idea for temporary infiltration.

Trader.

Traders are a bit different from caravanners, in that they usually travel from settlement to settlement to trade wares and never leave the immediate area of the Commonwealth. Caravanners go all over, some even clear across the continental US, but traders just do business within their small area. They’re often affiliated with large caravan operations (and often mistaken for caravanners because of that) as traders have a more personal and intimate relationship with settlements and often get better access and deals to goods sold by those settlements, which are then, in turn, flipped to caravanners for a wider range of distribution. Sure, some merchants in settlements have aspirations of making something sold all over the state, or three, or five, or half the damn country and they make deals with caravan companies directly, but most don’t trust a caravan operation to not bilk them out of profits, and thus they talk with traders.

Traders also don’t usually travel with the level of guards that caravan does, so it makes them an easier target. Of course, they don’t usually have the level of goods that a caravan has, so they aren’t as juicy a target, but raiders are just willing to attack traders as they are caravans. 

“I figure if I pretend to be a trader recently attacked, just running through Cambridge without a destination in mind except to get away from the raiders or ferals or whatever that killed my guards, I’ll seem like low threat and won’t get shot before I tell them that I’m affiliated with O’Malley Caravans,” Deacon says. “From there they’ll probably send someone to negotiate with the caravan manager, which should give me enough time to snoop around and eavesdrop.”

“And if they tie you up? Or stick you in a locked room?” Jolene asks, a frown on her face and High Rise gives a bark of laughter. 

“Dee can pick a lock no problem, and if he seems like some little soft trader they won’t bother with knots that can’t be gotten out of.”

“And even if they do, I can hide a razor blade in the heel of my boot.”

“How very secret agent of you,” JH comments a smirk in his voice. 

“Hey, every once and a while, I do something pretty cool. I mean, I know it doesn’t happen _that_ often, but I am capable of it.” Deacon shrugs. “Of course, rope’ll take forever to cut through, so let’s hope it’s handcuffs instead. Either way, I won’t start out until tomorrow evening. Gotta go raid the synth clothing stockpile and find some stuff appropriate for my disguise.”

“Do you want a couple agents to go with you to fire guns to sell the fiction of the fight better?” High Rise asks as Deacon stands from the table, grabbing his dish to take to the sink.

Deacon nods. “Yeah, we’ll go a few blocks up from GreeneTech, far enough that they can’t just flank us and start their own battle. The shots will echo through the buildings and then I come rushin’ after them and hope I don’t get shot.”

“Okay. Parade and Uncle should be back from Goodneighbour tonight and can help. Callie and Drummer have been doin’ message runs together, so she’s tied up. Though, Jolene if you're interested you could go,” HR says, “I know you don’t do runs as often so sometimes I forget to ask if you want in on one.”

“Eh, maybe? Might be good to get out. I’ll let you know tomorrow,” Jolene replies and High Rise nods. 

“I’m gonna go visit with JH for a bit and then maybe you could show me the cameras? Couldn’t hurt to have a second set of eyes on it,” Deacon says to Jolene.

“That’d be great. Swing by my workshop when you’re done with Henry,” she says and heads out of the kitchen.

“Oh fine, talk with the glorified computer and totally ignore me. That’s cool,” High Rise says in mock hurt. “What do I need to talk with you for anyways, right? We’ve only been friends five years.”

Deacon throws an arm around HR’s shoulder. “Hey, you and me always have a slumber party when I roll around. You can braid my hair and tell me all about these annoying agents you run herd on, I’ll gush about Nick, and we’ll stay up way past our bedtimes.” High Rise laughs. “Gotta save the best for last, right?”

“Man, go. Shit. I knew there was a reason I was glad you didn’t live here anymore.” High Rise shrugs Deacon arms off with a grin, but then leans in with a quick sotto voice, “But seriously, we gonna do a fishtail this time?”

His conspiratorial tone catches Deacon off guard and he genuinely laughs. Times like this he regrets giving up Ticon has his permanent safehouse. For all its annoying height off the ground, it's been his home for a long time. High Rise gives him a smug look. It isn’t often that he makes Deacon laugh like that.

“Fishtail sounds ace, HR. Give me a couple of hours, and then I’m all yours.”

Upstairs, he settles heavily into the desk chair in front of JH’s terminal and gives it a little spin, closing his eyes and listening to the whirring of the servers. JH has come a long way since Deacon first built his main computer. Jolene has taken his project and run with it, hell she got in a frigging vertibird and flew across the damn country with it. Three different rooms on the floor directly below this one now hold servers, with pieces of the wall carved away to allow wiring to flow between it all, and in this room, where Deacon’s bed used to sit, there’s a foot-wide hole where all that wiring flows up and joins into the servers on this level. 

Jolene’s workshop is right in the middle of all those lower-level servers, and Deacon is pretty sure she’ll just keep commandeering rooms on lower and lower levels of Ticon until he figures out how to get JH from here to the Institute’s no doubt impressive main computer system. He imagines it’s something similar to the one the Enclave had in Raven Rock. It might even be a ZAX. He’d be right at home in that. Of course, there’s the teeny, tiny problem of not knowing exactly where the hell the Institute is. Sometimes he wonders if he shouldn’t be dedicating more of his time to finding it instead of waiting for his fabled vault dweller to make her appearance, but in all honesty, he can’t make up his mind about it and thus does nothing.

“You’re favouring your left knee,” JH says once Deacon has made one full revolution in the chair.

“Yeah. Buggered it up going after those synths. Carrington fixed it, just needs some time to heal.”

“Which you aren’t allowing for.”

Deacon stops and looks at the camera. “Uh, and let this opportunity for some covert action slip by? You know I hate this actual heavy work.” Then he snorts at his own hypocrisy and amends his statement. “Well, only if I have to kill for someone else.”

JH sighs. “I’m never sure if you say things like that because you actually believe them or because you’re fishing for someone to contradict you and boost your sense of self-worth.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? Actually, ya know what? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.”

“Perhaps it’s a bit of both,” JH continues like Deacon hasn’t spoken. “Jolene does something similar (though, thankfully less often these days), both thinking of herself as being lower than others due to that ingrained perception and wanting confirmation that she’s not. You’re harder to parse, however. Possibly because I don’t see you as often.”

“And thank God for that,” Deacon replies. “Otherwise, I’d have to explain every single stray thought that somehow manages to make it out of my mouth in terms of my self-worth and surprise, surprise, I don’t need you to validate me.” 

“I know that, Deacon, but do you?”

He frowns at the camera. “There was only ever one person I wanted validation from and he’s dead. There've been a few runners-up throughout the years, but they’ve all fallen spectacularly short. So yeah, I know. Ironically, this is one of the few times the statement: ‘you’re not my dad’ can be said without that churlish childishness that underlies it in all other situations.” Deacon sighs and slides a hand over the side of his face. How is that JH can just push all his buttons? Jeez. Does Nick send him pointers? “Look, let’s not do this, okay? The kids are probably listening.”

“Deacon,” JH says, a quiet seriousness in his voice. “You’re not a monster and you’re not a bad person. We all have done and will do things we regret. That’s a fact of life. The only thing we can do is learn from them and move forward.” 

Deacon pulls in a small breath of air at the way those words relax something within him and _damn_ JH for realizing that he needed someone to contradict his assessment of himself. “Thanks, dad,” he says, feeling that churlishness he mentioned a moment ago at being read so easily.

“You’re welcome,” JH blithely replies and Deacon can’t help the small smirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth. “It’s also necessary to point out that you don’t hate heavy work, you wouldn’t’ve become one if you did. What you hate, even more than having to kill someone, is being degraded to a mere tool to be forcefully shoved at one problem after another until you burn out. It’s why you left covert action in the first place.”

“Well, I did burn out doing that Deathclaw thing, but that was because of that whole fucked up situation, not because I’m a ‘tool’. I’m not a tool.”

“No, you’re not,” JH agrees and Deacon’s suddenly lost because uh…what? He just contradicted himself. “You’re good at what you do and excellent at learning things that you’re not given the right motivation. It makes you a valuable asset, as does the fact that you very rarely refuse to do something for a person, a group, or a cause that you believe in, and over time those things ensure that anyone in a position of power over you will ultimately see you as a tool to throw at problems. Tools are made to be used and you hate that.”

Deacon looks at JH’s camera, not entirely sure what to say. “…Doesn’t everyone?”

“No. Many find security in being that tool that someone else puts to use because they believe that other person or organization or cause can create more good with them than they can by themselves, but that’s not you, Deacon. You know you can create plenty of good on your own, and chaff against someone else’s direction.” There’s a moment of consideration from JH and his camera refocuses on Deacon. “And yet you keep putting yourself in situations where you must take someone else’s direction. I don’t quite understand why.”

“Really? Because it seems like you’ve a pretty good handle it,” Deacon grumbles. “Doesn’t sound like you don’t see me enough.”

“Not to parse your speech, but my primary function is to interpret data. And you don’t need to be present for that. I see the results of your actions through messages and reports, and I know what you did before. I don’t have the data to understand why you keep returning to situations to you despise, however.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? Walk into the Switchboard and tell them I don’t like the way they run things and announce a coup?”

“Yes.”

Deacon huffs. “I can’t do that. I _won’t_ do that. It’s not my place to just go around and take control of things. Not the least because the last time I tried to do that it all went to hell. Best intentions and all that. Sly Nick and Dez’ve got the Railroad in hand.”

“Nothing goes smoothly. You must expect problems and hiccups. The real reason things didn’t work out in the Capital, setting aside the fact that the Brotherhood committed a terrible atrocity against you and your family, is that you didn’t see it through.”

“Well, of course, I didn’t see it through!” Deacon barks, voice raising in a flash of anger before he quiets again. “How could I, after that?” 

“It’s not a condemnation, only an observation. Remember that observation when the time comes for you to do more than be a tool for someone else’s goals.”

Deacon slouches in the chair and crosses his arms, feeling a mix of emotions and caught somewhere between agreeing and disagreeing with JH’s words. “And when is this mythical time supposed to arrive? This year? The next? Ten? Twenty?”

“It’s begun, the only question remains is how long you'll tarry before you act.” JH pauses for a moment. “I picked up a Brotherhood radio transmissions in the Commonwealth last week.” Deacon goes still. “A recon group arrived via vertibird and have been scouting. They only consist of six soldiers, but the main force of The Brotherhood will follow them soon enough.”

“Where?”

“They’re currently in the northeastern part of what was considered the Boston area, near the Revere Satellite Array —I’m not sure if when people talk about the Commonwealth, they mean the whole of Massachusetts or just this area around Boston.”

Deacon waves a hand to dismiss the topic. “There isn’t a consensus so you aren’t the only one who wonders that.”

“Hmm. Well, in any case, I expect The Brotherhood here in force within the year. Likely before winter.”

Deacon pushes up his sunglasses and rubs his eyes. “Fuck. She isn’t going to be released from the vault until October. That’s six months from now.”

“Then perhaps it’s time to consider alternatives.”

“…Such as?”

“The Minutemen.”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Gonna halfta be a little more specific than that.”

“You don’t wish to do something with The Railroad because they already have a leader, The Minutemen do not and haven’t for nearly five years.”

“They also don’t have numbers, real support outside of Quincy, and sport a serious lack of technology. They use _crank_ laser rifles for Godssakes! They’d never stand a chance against the Gunners, let alone The Brotherhood of Steel. They’re dead, they just haven’t quite registered that fact.”

“Perhaps, but you know The Brotherhood’s tactics and fighting style. I also happen to know the locations of a few military bunkers in this area. No guarantees they haven’t been raided in the last 200-years, but better weapons could be found there, as could power armour. If you start building The Minutemen into a real force again, support will come.”

“Their support came from the people not because they were a military force, but because they protected their settlements and keep the roads clear. A militia is a helluva lot different than a real military.” Deacon shakes his head. “I mean the simple logistics behind making The Minutemen in a group that even stands _a chance_ against The Brotherhood are nigh on impossible.” He starts ticking things off on his fingers: “They’d need a base of some kind outside of Quincy, weapons, ammo, armour, as well as basics like food and water. Once you’ve got that then you need active recruitment, a way to communicate between settlements so that help could be made available and thus expand influence. Eventually, you’d have to negotiate with the larger settlements like Diamond City, Bunker Hill, and Goodneighbour. 

“There’s just no way to make it work in six months. You’d never get a group large enough to successfully take on The Brotherhood. You know history, minutemen were irregulars and a very small portion of the militia formed amongst the colonies, and these modern Minutemen are as _irregular_ as you get.”

“You don’t need a force to hold off against a direct attack,” JH argues. “Minutemen were skirmishers and can be again. What you need is to be able to prevent The Brotherhood from gaining a foothold. The Institute will likely take care of the rest if we don’t get to them first and if we do, then that’s where the army will come from. Coursers will push back The Brotherhood better than a dozen platoons. Then you can negotiate with them.”

Deacon snorts, but it’s not _that_ bad of a plan. Though, it only really lands in their favour if they find The Institute first. “As what?” he asks. “The General of the Minutemen or Leader of The Institute.”

“Both would be best. A clear position of power will give you the better deal.”

Deacon groans. Why is JH being so literal right now? “Joking. I was joking. One, I’d never negotiate with those pricks, and two, not takin’ over the leadership of The Minutemen. They wouldn’t even vote for me, anyways.”

“Always negotiate if possible. No need to eradicate any group if you can make them submissive. And I’d give you six weeks before you’d be voted General. Less if you could find some proper equipment or a new place for them to build.”

“Oh sure, why not? Hell, let’s just make it a fuckin’ week and I’ll go take back The Castle right now. Nothin’ like a little hero imagery to make the people love you.”

There’s a pause from JH. “The Castle?”

“Fort Independence,” Deacon replies with a dismissive motion. “They used to hang out there but a monster killed a bunch of them and they lost it. A few of ‘em talk about takin’ it back but they don’t have the numbers.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” JH says. “They’d surely make you General then, the man who got back their fabled Castle.”

Deacon rolls his eyes, he shouldn’t have said anything. “No, it’s not. A mirklurk _queen_ lives there now. That’s two stories of ‘you’re gonna have a real bad, no good, rotten, day.”

JH makes a thoughtful noise considering this latest data. “Don’t they have Fat Man launcher? Surely a few shells from that would destroy the creature.”

“Yeah, and the surroundin’ brickwork. That place wasn’t exactly meant to withstand a nuke. Look, stop talkin' about this. It’s not gonna happen. I’m not doing it. End of.”

There’s a moment of silence and Deacon thinks that maybe JH has decided that retreat is the better part of valour. 

“How do you know a mirelurk queen is nesting there?”

Or not.

“Talked to The Minutemen. This one guy, Garvey, it’s all he wants to do.” He didn’t actually talk to Captain Garvey about the mirelurk, though the man did talk a lot about retaking The Castle.

Another beat of silence goes by before JH declares, “No, you didn’t. You looked into it on your own because you have thought about all the things we’ve just talked about.” There’s a pleased tone to his voice.

“Nope. You’re wrong,” Deacon replies and JH makes a noise of disbelief. Deacon lets the words hang in the air between them for a few moments before he caves. When did he get so bad at lying? “It was just that The Minutemen couldn’t seem to decide _what_ the monster was so I swung by a few months ago to check it out for myself. You’re readin’ too much into simple curiosity.”

JH chuckles. An annoying sound that declares he thinks he’s won. “If that’s what you must tell yourself. I suggest checking out the National Guard Training Yard to the northeast for weapons and armour, though you may have to avoid The Brotherhood scouts, and there’s a D.I.A. cache on top of 35 Court. Of what, I don’t know, but it should be useful and I doubt anyone has managed to loot it.”

Deacon sighs and puts his head in his hands, giving up on fighting for the moment. “Great. 35 Court. My _favourite_ place in the whole Commonwealth.”

JH makes a commiserating noise before he says, “The Switchboard likely has military information that could be of use. If you come across any holotapes, I’d like to see them. Or if you’re feeling especially ambitious, tune its transmitter to my radio dish frequency so I can access whatever servers still have power. I might be able to deduce locations of crashed vertibirds and military transports for raiding.”

“…I’ll think about it. _No_ promises.”

\- - - - - -

Jolene isn’t present in her workshop when Deacon arrives after his bracing conversation with JH. The radio is playing in the background, the music humming just above the noise of the servers and on it, Bo Diddley is telling his girl that _‘I can tell. I can tell. I know you don’t love me no more.’_ It’s a great tune, the beat especially. Deacon leans against Jolene’s workbench and sings softly along swaying slightly because it’s practically impossible not to dance to the beat. Be a good song to fight to. 

Her workshop looks much like his bedroom used to, though with slightly fewer robot parts and more computer junk. It looks like she repurposed all his filing cabinets and boxes to hold her stuff instead, and despite their haphazard stacks, the rest of the place is neat and tidy. Tools line the wall behind him, in nice, even rows, the floor is clear of debris, and JH’s serves are just as orderly as the tools. On the wall opposite, there are several papers tacked to his old corkboard, and Deacon, curious, pulls them down to shift through them. They’re designs for servers and wireless transmitters and something called a Spatial Light Modulator. He pauses on that, trying to understand what it might be used for and the calculations she’s scribbled on the side. After a moment it clicks: it’s for better light refraction. Huh. There are a few pages underneath that Deacon discovers with some surprise are his notes on Gen 1 and 2 construction; he thought he’d sent all his robot notes to Nick.

Jolene bustles in a moment later, a towel wrapped around her hair and skin slightly flushed from hot bath water. He flips the drawings around and she blushes. “Uh…sorry. I borrowed those.”

“No problem, but why?”

“Looking for weaknesses. Figured it might help the agents going after the synth patrols.”

Deacon tacks it all back up on the corkboard. “Cool. Though, ya coulda asked. I’d’ve given them to you.”

“Well, I meant to just copy them and put them back, but I got distracted and you sent the other ones to Diamond City and…” Jolene trails off as she sits in her chair. 

“Eh, just keep ‘em. Doesn’t look like robot building is gonna be in my future anytime soon. If ever. So, about those cameras?”

He can’t say that they find the problem plaguing the cameras, but between the three of them, they seem to find a couple possibilities that will have to tested. Jolene is perfectly willing to work as long as it takes into the night, but Deacon is tired and has things he needs to do tomorrow, so he bids them goodnight and lets her and JH continue to tinker with the problem.

Things between him and Jolene have improved considerably since that initial blowout over JH and Deacon’s treatment of him. Mostly because he finally realized that he was a colossal prick about the whole thing and apologized to her last year. There’s no way that he knows JH better than she does, not even then. Deacon is only at Ticon every few months and Jolene interacts with him on a daily basis. The idea that he knew better was just so arrogant and certainly didn’t support the argument that he is better that those Institute jerks. Nobody likes being wrong, but sometimes you are and you just got to own up to that, so he did. And then to his utter surprise, Jolene apologized too.

“I was jealous. I’d never had a friend before and even with all the great people here, I still felt that…class difference, ya know? We’re programmed and taught to believe that humans are superior so even though I knew that wasn’t true, I still believed it and it was a barrier to actually making friends with Callie, or Parade, or Drummer.” She shrugged. “But Henry is like me, so it felt safe to be friends with him, and then he told me that he placed a lot of importance on your approval, and I heard: ‘I like Deacon better than you’. Which I know isn’t true; at least I do now.” She sort of laughed. “So, I kinda…flipped out because it was like this horrible confirmation that I wasn’t good enough. I mean, not that I was wrong about some of the other stuff, just that I should’ve said it better. Ya know, with like _less_ shouting.” Then she really did laugh. And yeah, things were a lot better between them.

In the morning, Deacon picks through the clothing that Ticon scrounges for the synths they run —usually, they try to give each synth three outfits for the road. The clothes aren’t anything special, but they are quintessentially what the average Waster wears and so the synths blend seamlessly into the background (aside from their often-awkward social skills). Deacon will admit to being a bit vain, so he mostly drifts toward crisper and neater clothing, which, to be fair, is also partly another one of those pesky holdovers from the vault, and also means that he stands out sometimes unless he’s specifically going for the understated, ‘I’m nobody’ look. In this case, he wants to look a bit flashy to fit that trader persona, so he digs deep in the stash, knowing that there are a few articles of clothing that never get chosen by synths because of the fact that they are just a bit too flashy for their comfort level. 

The April days are mostly warm, but a little bit of wind is all it takes to drop that temperature again, and he can’t go with own coat or vest in case the Gunners decide that they really like the craftsmanship Charlie put into them and decide to keep them for themselves. And since Charlie’s gone those things have become priceless bits of fashionable armour. Like hell he’s gonna let the Gunners get a hold of them.

Deacon pulls a dingy white suit jacket with blue pinstripes to serve as a replacement for his coat. Then he digs through the boxes, certain that there’s a Bottle and Cappy t-shirt in here from Nuka World that everyone passes over and he’ll admit to being unreasonably gleeful about getting an excuse to wear it. He always wanted to just take the thing but it didn’t seem right when he’s perfectly capable of buying his own clothing. He finds it in the bottom of a far box, smelling faintly musty, but otherwise intact. He flicks it out and smiles at the stupid design, thinking of Sierra and wondering if the Capital has finally run out of Nuka Cola to satisfy her addiction. 

A t-shirt by itself is will be too cool under the jacket, so he’ll layer his own blue dress shirt to give it a bit of extra warmth. He holds the t-shirt against his chest, wondering if it's even the right size. It seems to fit okay, but the real test is yet to come. Before he leaves the room, Deacon tries on the suit jacket, just in case its fit leaves something to be desired. Thankfully, whoever it was tailored for was about the same size as him. The jacket fits through the shoulders and chest, though it’s a bit short on his arms. The other guy likely wasn’t as tall as him, but it hardly matters, he can shove the sleeves up if it isn’t too cold or the length of his own dress shirt will make up the difference. Clothing hardly fits anyone perfectly unless they have the caps, ability, or care to tailor it.

With his disguise picked out, Deacon goes around Ticon collecting various bits of random ammo, and trinkets. He also grabs some of Jolene’s useless computer junk. Then he asks Codsworth to put together a couple day’s worth of food for travelling. Once he has all of those things gathered, he fills his backpack up with them because he’ll undoubtedly be searched when taken by the Gunners and even though it’s more about the relationships that traders cultivate with settlements than the actual stuff they haul around to trade, he still needs to look like he _has_ things to trade. He’ll also have to sacrifice a hundred or so caps to this venture.

When everything is packed, Deacon checks Ticon’s armoury for a pistol to temporarily replace his own. In February, the last time he was in Diamond City, Deacon finally brought his lever-action rifle to Nick’s to live. That was pretty much the last thing he had at Ticon, everything else, his books, his bat, his clothes were all already there. Not that he would grab the rifle in place of his plasma pistol this time anyways, again, another thing he doesn’t want the Gunners to keep, besides, a rifle is what a guard would have, maybe a caravanner, but most traders use handguns and employ a guard or two for the heavy power. Ticon has a few different weapons stashed that have been picked up on travels mostly for parts for because an agent found something better and just left their weapon for the stash in the armoury. Deacon finds a 10mm in pretty decent shape and fills a couple clips with ammo before he takes it for a proper cleaning and oiling.

Deacon spends the rest of the day catching up with Parade and Uncle, and then Callie and Drummer when they roll in in the late afternoon. There still seems to be a bit of apprehension from Uncle and Callie about the rate at which JH is expanding, but now that he has a voice and the ability to speak to them like any other member of the safehouse, they feel a little better about the assurance that he’s on their side. Plus, the outdoor cameras have added an extra level of security to Ticon and everyone feels better about knowing who’s knocking (knock, knock, knocking) on their door. It’ll be even better if Jolene and JH can get the infrared working because then they can see things that don’t register on a regular camera, like a Courser under the cover of a stealth boy.

In the evening, as the sun is setting, Deacon, Jolene, and Parade set out to get him captured by Gunners. He’s feeling pretty Madison Avenue in the suit jacket and Nuka World top, so much so that he might just keep them and cycle them into his regular wardrobe. Not that they’re subtle or anything, but sometimes it’s fun to be a little standout-ish. Parade had laughed aloud when Deacon slid across the living room floor in Ticon in an old Elvis move during his big reveal. 

Because of the time of day, Deacon is hoping the Gunners will be more reluctant to send someone to Bunker Hill to try and corroborate/extort money from the office of O’Malley Caravans. Or if they decide to go, the dark will slow their progress enough to allow Deacon the time he needs to escape and poke around. They chat a little as they make their way through the streets, weaving their way away from Ticon, and keeping their conversation as neutral as possible in case the Gunners have sentries in the area. When they are about halfway between the Cambridge crater and Augusta, Deacon ducks down a short alley. 

“Okay, so when we start shootin',” he says, “I expect it to draw out the ferals in the area. So just be careful and avoid the crater on the way back.”

Parade rolls her eyes. “Duh,” she says and Deacon flicks her arm. There’s a momentary play fight between the two of them until Jolene sighs, probably feeling like the only adult in the group and shoots the building across the street. Parade mumbles something like, “buzz kill,” and they all start firing into the building. A couple quick pops here and there, to make it sound like they’re actually fighting something rather than just firing blind. After a bit of this, they stop and the three of them emerge back out into the street before firing a frantic grouping of shots coupled with a few yells. Then they stop again, look at one another, and split. 

Jolene and Parade will have to do their best to avoid the ferals they’ve likely drawn and be extra careful since the noise of gunfire will dampen their hearing for short while. Also, if they fire their guns again it will mark Deacon’s story as a lie. He runs south, weaving toward GreeneTech, near the bank of the Charles River, firing a few shots behind him to try and draw any of the ferals away from Parade and Jolene. 

He spends a bit of time trying to talk himself into purposefully tripping to scunt up his hands, jeans, and coat, for that extra bit of realism, but no one _wants_ to hurt themselves. As he runs, Deacon keeps coming across nice bits of the debris in the road that would serve as the perfect platform in which to trip but he just can’t quite make that leap. Well, that’s actually the problem isn’t it because he’s is _leaping_ and not trip—

A heavy weight hits him suddenly from the side, throwing him off balance and causing his momentum to drive him into the ground. Most of his weight landing on his still-healing knee drawing a pained yelp from him before the foreign weight pulls him the rest of the way down, sharp claws scrabbling at his jacket. Frantically, Deacon tries to shake off the feral that surprised him, attempting to get a leg between himself at the snarling thing. His pistol was knocked from his hand when he went down and lies a couple feet beyond his grasp. 

The feral clings to him; claws tearing at his jacket, Deacon’s exposed arms, and his face before he gets his hands around the thing’s throat and throws it to the side rolling with the momentum to land on top of it. Now he can reach his pistol. He quickly puts the feral out of its misery, breathing heavily, sticky blood all over the side of his arm. After a moment he rises, knee almost buckling under him and sending him back to the ground. Deacon swears. This is really going to compromise his ability to get this mission done. He grits his teeth and set off down the road at a limp. A few more ferals crawl out of the woodwork, drawn by the stench of blood, both Deacon’s and the other feral’s, but he’s prepared for them this time and manages to keep them at bay. 

Movement seems to help ease the pain in his knee and Deacon gets back up to a trot, but he can’t manage any faster than that, or any sudden movements. It’ll definitely give out then, but at least he looks like he’s just been through hell. He rounds the corner of the street the GreeneTech building is on, shooting as he looks behind him to make sure that there aren’t any ferals following, looking to jump him. He makes it about a half a block before the sharp _crack_ of a high calibre rifle echoes through the air and a bullet pings the street in front of him. Immediately he stumbles to a stop and throws his hands up, the one still clinging to his 10mm pistol.

Sniper. 

It takes a moment before a few Gunners step out of the buildings around GreeneTech, guns trained on him, but they haven’t yet opened fire so he should have an opportunity to speak. One of the Gunners reaches him, a youngish man with dirty face and even dirtier clothing, and yanks Deacon’s gun from his hand, keeping his assault rifle trained on Deacon’s chest. He hasn’t felt this exposed in a long time and longs for the protective weight of his vest; Deacon makes sure that the very real fear of dying on the street bleeds into his expression.

The Gunners circle him, four of them, their guns relaxed, waiting. Then, a woman marches through the circle, and shoves the younger man aside, making him stumble a bit at the suddenness of it. 

“Who’re you?” she barks, voice strong and commanding. Her hair cropped short and crude, and an O- tattooed on her neck. Deacon hesitates, looking cowed by her presence, hunching his shoulders so he doesn’t seem so tall. “Speak or I’ll kill you and be done with it.”

“Crow,” Deacon blurts, a panicked edge to his voice. “I go by Crow. I’m—I’m a trader. Take whatever you want, just please don’t kill me.” A few of them chuckle at his plea and the woman gestures for one of the men to take his backpack. He shifts through the contents, finding Deacon’s caps and food after a moment and deeming the rest useless. He shows his findings to the woman. 

She looks Deacon up and down, taking his garb and the blood. Then she looks behind him. “Where’re your guards, little trader?”

Deacon sucks in a shaky breath of air. “…Dead. We were ambushed by—by ferals. They were overwhelmed and I…ran.”

“So, you’re a coward, little trader?” she says and gives him a look of disgust. Deacon nods. Agreement will, hopefully, prolong his life. Though, the ‘little trader’ shtick is starting to wear thin. He’s probably a good two inches taller than the tallest Gunner here and certainly taller than her. Not that her lack of height is working against her, all these Gunners clearly defer to her. “I hate cowards,” she sneers. “Shoot 'em and loot 'em, boys.”

Five rifles lift and Deacon truly panics. “Wait! Wait, _please!_ I work for O’Malley Caravans. I’m worth more alive than dead, I promise. Please!” He might have gotten on his knees for the added dramatic effect if his one knee could stand the strain, instead, Deacon lets his panicked body language work for him. The Gunners hesitate and the woman frowns.

“I said shoot ‘im.”

“Sarg,” one Gunner says, “The L-T wants caravanners kept alive.”

She marches over the dissenting voice. “He’s not a fuckin’ caravanner, is he? He’s a trader.”

The Gunner lets his gaze flick to the ground as he says, “But he works for the O’Malley’s. That’s big caps. The L-T’ll be pissed if we kill ‘im before we try to get money for ‘im.”

“And the O’Malley’s don’t pay for every ransomed asshole. There’s no guarantee that he’s gonna be worth anything to them.”

“I’m worth it,” Deacon says quickly, “I’m worth a lotta caps.”

Like a lightning strike, the Sergeant backhands him across the face, flinging his sunglass off his and causing the glass lenses to crack as they hit the ground. The surprise and pain of it catch Deacon off guard and he stumbles a couple steps. Holy shit that _hurt._ His ears are ringing from the impact. 

“Shut up,” she snarls.

“Sarg, we gotta bring him to the L-T.”

For a moment it looks like she’s going to strike that Gunner as well, but controls herself and stalks out of the circle. “Grab him,” she snaps, and they scramble to comply. A couple of Gunners manhandle him down the rest of the block, and Deacon does his best not to resist them. It both feeds into the idea that he’s weak and saves his strength for later. As they round the side of GreeneTech Genetics, Deacon starts cataloging the kind of defenses they’ve set up. 

There are a pair barricades built from junk left lying in the streets just in front of the stairs that lead to the entrance and they provide decent cover for the Gunner on watch at the bottom of them. Two more barricades are in the process of being constructed on the balcony that wraps around the front of the building. Deacon glances up and around, to see if he can spot more sniper perches in the buildings around them. He’s not sure where that first shot came from, but they must have more than one sniper watching the roads unless they’re aren’t many more of them that this group of nine. Maybe they’re waiting for reinforcements. The building directly across the street as a lower section of roof for the entrance and a ladder is leaned against the building that might suggest the Gunners are making that a watch position as well, though there’s nothing up there at the moment.

At the top of the stairs, there’s a barrel fire burning right next to the metal railing and the two Gunners ‘escorting’ him stop next to it. Another continues by them and darts inside the building. Deacon looks around at the Gunners on watch up here, going relaxed in the grip of the two holding him as he considers the situation. Could he escape if the Lieutenant decided he wasn’t worth the trouble? A few Gunners start to gather around the other side of the barrel and Deacon thinks he might be able to knock it over and catch them with the hot wood and flames, maybe setting them on fire, but at the very least causing a distraction. He can feel the grip on his arms lessen with every passing moment of his compliance, so hopefully, it won’t be too hard to shove the pair of them away and perhaps grab one of their guns. The only remaining question is, can he dart over the edge of the balcony and get to cover across the street before he get’s shot in the back? 

A moment later, three Gunners emerge from the building, the runner, and two others. The man in the middle, with a large beard and faded A+ tattooed on his forehead, stops in front of Deacon, giving him a critical once-over. This must be the L-T.

“Trader?” he asks, voice gruff. “Not caravanner?”

Deacon nods rapidly.

“Not worth as much,” he declares and looks past Deacon to the Sergeant. “What’d he have on him, Grady?”

“Fuck all,” the woman responds. “A few caps, food, and junk.” 

The Lieutenant hums in displeasure and looks at Deacon again, clearly trying to decide if he’s worth the effort of a ransom.

“It’s uh…not what we have. It’s what we _know,_ ” Deacon ventures. “And my knowledge is valuable to the O’Malleys.”

Grady snorts. “You’d say anythin’ to save your coward hide, little trader.”

There’s a moment of silence and Deacon can feel his chances of survival slipping away. Then,

“We’re trying to set up our presence here,” the Gunner who exited with the Lieutenant says; his blood type tattoo covered by a beret. “A ransom’s more effective than a corpse. It lets Bunker Hill know that this section of Cambridge is ours.”

The Lieutenant considers the other Gunners words, then, “Ransoming is work. More work that we’ll get in caps outta trader.”

“True,” the other Gunner agrees with a shrug, “But it’s not about the caps as much as it is about the message. Captain Wes wants us to set up a stronghold in the north, so we gotta make sure everyone ‘round here knows this is our turf. Me and Winlock could head out to Bunker Hill now and shake down the O’Malley’s manager. Even if we don’t get caps it’ll be worth the trek.” The Gunner smirks. “Prick’ll probably shit his pants to see us this far north.”

The Lieutenant gives Deacon another look, a slight frown on his face before he waves his hand. “Go. And be quick.”

“You got it, L-T.” The man heads out, another Gunner joining him from the watch on the half-constructed barricade that must be Winlock.

“And Barnes?” the Lieutenant says, stopping the two Gunners on their way down the stairs, “Stay outta the fuckin’ bar.”

The two of them give lazy salutes with matching smirks, but their nods seem serious enough and the Lieutenant looks away, back to Deacon. “Grady, tell the greenhorn he’s got a bunk mate until those two assholes return.”

\- - - - -

Deacon’s escort shoves him through the open door of a large office on the third floor that has been turned into a bunk room for several Gunners. The dividing walls of the individual workspaces separate the different bedrooms of the Gunners, and couches have been drug from different areas of the building and set up where the desks used to be, sleeping bags spread over their cushions. The desks and filing cabinets that used to populate the office are now stacked in various areas of the hall and stairs to create choke points that will force anyone invading down a specific path. It reminds him a bit of Augusta.

On the south side of the building, looking over the central open area of GreeneTech, there is a massive window with a view of the Charles River that the Gunners are in the progress of covering, and as they climbed toward the offices, Deacon noted several tripwire traps. So far, he’s counted fifteen Gunners. A significant force at the best of times, but in a building like this, with their clearly superior positions on the upper floors, it’ll be a nigh on impossible task to route them. The only way to do it would be with five or so covert units with an armload of stealth boys a piece, or like ten power armour units with plasma weapons and a bad attitude. Neither of which is possible for the Railroad.

His escort gives him a quick pat down, looking for any other weapons he might have, before they shove him in an office chair and handcuff his arms behind him, clicking them painfully tight around his wrists to prevent him from slipping out by dislocating a thumb. It also happens to limit his range of movement for picking, but he’ll manage. He has to. One of the Gunners takes a seat on the couch-bed, watching Deacon as he waits for the greenhorn the Lieutenant mentioned to arrive. 

Deacon’s knee aches in a steady thrum with his heartbeat (there are too many stairs in this place) and side of his face where Grady backhanded him is hot and still stings. It’s probably forming a nice little bruise. At least his Nuka World shirt is still in good condition.

The Gunner waiting starts getting impatient and beings to pick through some of the drawers in the small filing cabinet left in the room. After a moment he mutters, “Bingo,” and pulls out an _Unstoppables_ comic. “Always does have the good shit,” the Gunner says and then he settles back down on the couch as he starts flipping through the comic. Deacon twists his head to read the cover, wondering what issue it is. “Want me to read aloud to you?” the Gunner asks with heavy sarcasm as he flips a page.

“Coulda ya? Don’t think I’ve seen that one before. What’s it about?”

“It’s the one where the Zetans invade and the Unstoppables have to call on Captain Cosmos for help,” a familiar voice says with a shade of annoyance. Deacon looks to the entrance of the cubicle and nearly cracks a massive, gleeful grin. _MacCready!_ Wait…what the hell is he doing back in the Commonwealth? “—and it’s mine, so put it down Crawford and fu— go away.”

Crawford laughs, whether at MacCready’s attitude or his weird refrain from swearing who knows, but he tosses the comic on the couch and stands. Shoving past MacCready at the entrance. “It’ll be mine greenie when you finally give up. You’re too soft to be one’a us.”

“Huh. Funny. That’s not what your sister said last night.”

For a moment, Crawford loses his laidback attitude and looks ready to strike MacCready, but he calms a second later. Deacon finds it amusing because not ten minutes ago he was cowering in the face of Grady’s anger. “Yep. Won’t be long now,” Crawford says before he disappears out of the office. 

“Jerk,” MacCready mutters and grabs the magazine from his bed and puts it back in the filing cabinet. Deacon shifts on the chair trying to get his hands close enough to pull his stashed bobby pin out of the tag loop on the inside of his jeans. If the Gunners had been more thorough with the whole patting him down, they would’ve found it, but he’d successfully convinced them that he was a coward and complacent enough to wait for the ransom. 

The chair squeaks as he grabs the bobby pin and MacCready shoots him a look over his shoulder. Deacon grins at him. MacCready rolls his eyes and sets his rifle down, leaning it against the wall. Then he slumps onto the couch, watching Deacon and looking annoyed that he’s been relegated to guard duty. He was probably the sniper that fired at Deacon earlier. Helluva shot.

“You’re fuc-, you’re not getting’ outta this alive. You know that, right?” MacCready tells him after a moment or so of silence. “They’re gonna kill you the moment Winlock and Barnes get back.”

Deacon leans over as far as he can in the chair, checking past the wall of the cubicle to see if anyone is hanging around. He doesn’t hear or see anyone. Maybe he’s caught a break with this because he won’t need to do a bunch of recon if he can convince MacCready to leave with him.

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet against me, Mac. Not the first time I outsmarted a few Gunners.” Deacon bends the bobby pin open and searches for the key opening on the cuff. His limited range of movement is really messing with his accuracy right now.

MacCready furrows his brow. “How did you…? Crawford thought he could rattle me with that little spook?” He snorts. “Well, look pal, this isn’t a few Gunners. It’s a lot. You’re not gonna get outta here. Sorry ‘bout that, but, well…tough luck.”

“Jeez, you’ve gotten a little cynical since the last time I saw ya. I mean, I know you’re a merc, but come on. You never struck me as a cold-blooded asshole. A little on the mouthy side, but that’s part of your charm. Though…you’re bein’ weirdly clean right now.” Deacon says as he continues playing with the bobby pin, twisting it carefully to try and find that sweet-spot.

“Okay, who the hell are you?”

“Aw, you don’t remember me? It’s the face, isn’t it? Always throws people for a loop.” The handcuff pops open and Deacon gives a little smirk in triumph, keeping his hands behind him. “So, remember that time we went to Fairline Hill Estates and helped some Minutemen kill a buncha—”

MacCready jumps off the couch and cups a hand around Deacon’s mouth, silencing him, face looking a little wild. “Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!” he hisses and Deacon laughs against MacCready’s hand (there’s his cute, little swearing merc), throwing his own up in surrender. MacCready lets go of Deacon’s mouth at that gesture before he realizes that Deacon’s hands _shouldn’t_ be free and makes to grab him again, but Deacon uses surprise and his taller frame against MacCready and wrestles him to the couch, pinning him down and throwing his own hand over MacCready’s mouth. 

“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Deacon says, keeping his voice low in case someone heard their scuffle. “You’re gonna show me were the L-T keeps his evil Gunner plans and then we’re gonna book it before those assholes get back from Bunker Hill and let everyone know I’m not a trader.”

MacCready struggles under Deacon’s weight and makes some muffled speech against Deacon’s hand. After Deacon gives him a warning not to yell, he lifts his hand, keeping MacCready pinned down. He doesn’t quite trust the kid’s alliances right now.

“Jesus Rhett, what the… I can’t friggin’ help you! They’ll _murder_ us both!”

“Possibly, but between the two of us I think we’ve got a pretty good chance of getting’ outta here alive.”

“Don’t you get it? I’m one’a them now.” MacCready’s gaze cuts away. “I always was.”

Deacon frowns a bit. “Bullshit. There’s a difference between mercs and these unscrupulous pricks. Jesus, that Grady chick just about killed me in the street for sayin’ I was a coward. _At most_ that deserves a gut punch. You’re better than them.”

“Yeah, well…I need the caps, and freelance work is in short supply.”

“So, work for me.”

“…What?”

“I got caps to spend on a high-class merc like yourself and even some things I could use a bit a help on.” Deacon slides off the couch, letting MacCready up. “We worked together pretty well last time.”

The kid sits up on the couch, running a hand through his hair before he picks up his hat off the ground. “I…I don’t know.”

“What’s your going rate?” Deacon presses. He’s dying to know why MacCready’s back in the Commonwealth, but that’s a conversation for later. Right now, he needs to convince him to leave with him because the hell he’s going to let MacCready’s talents work for the Gunners and if he needs caps, Deacon has caps to spare.

MacCready’s gaze gets hard. “100 caps a week,” he says like he expects to scare Deacon off with that number. Deacon takes a moment to do some math in his head, he’s got to make the number worth MacCready’s while.

“3,000 and you’re mine for six months,” he says after a moment and MacCready gaps at him. “And you tell me what’s with you being in the ‘Wealth again.”

Suddenly, MacCready get’s a mulish look on his face. “As if that’s any of your friggin’ business.”

Deacon shrugs, hoping to come as unconcerned but he’s worried that he’s pushed too hard. Can’t be something good if that’s his reaction to Deacon asking. “Then don’t, but a lot can happen in six months.” When MacCready doesn’t respond, Deacon goes for his ace, a bit ticked that he screwed up enough to warrant using it. “Aw, come on Mac. You’re honestly tellin’ me you’d rather work for these _mungos,_ than me?” Instantly, MacCready’s head snaps up, surprise and wariness on his face. “I’m like a gazillion times more fun.”

“…Yeah, except you want to escape from a Gunner compound,” MacCready croaks.

“Well, I don’t wanna die. Seems like a no-brainer.”

MacCready stands from the couch and gives Deacon another one of those hard stares. It reminds him of the first time he went to Little Lamplight; MacCready looked at him the same way then, too. “Here’s my counter offer, Rhett: 3,000 caps, six months, and I’ll tell you about…that only if _you_ tell me how the heck you know about mungos.”

Deacon considers the proposal for a moment; wondering if he can get away with fudging the truth a bit, wondering if he should. MacCready left a backdoor in that offer, so Deacon doesn’t have to say anything if he doesn’t ask anything first, but he’s very curious and not entirely sure if he can ignore it. He decides not to decide because he honestly can’t and it feels better with only the possibility of a lie than the certainty of one and holds out his hand for MacCready to shake. “Don’t forget about the Gunners super secret evil plans.” 

MacCready grabs his hand with a half-laugh and nods his head. “Give me a sec to pack some things.”

Once he’s got his gear together, MacCready tentatively leads them down the length of the office checking for any Gunners hanging about and then out into the hall, past the collapsed section of wall and ceiling that’s blocking the hall father back. He tells Deacon in a low voice that about this time Gunners not on patrol are usually upstairs in the old breakroom for supper. 

“The planning room is one level above that and the L-T might be in it,” MacCready says and Deacon replies, “Let’s hope not.”

They head up a floor using a collapsed section of ceiling as a ramp and Deacon’s knee is not too fond of the steep incline. At the top, there’s a bridge that leads across the open central area and the two of them stop at the edge of the archway and peer out, looking for anyone who might be on the other side, and more importantly, on the bridge above or down below that might have a clear line of sight. The bridge has coils of wiring tossed in a few spots that look like it was ripped from the walls, as well as a few turrets sitting near the wires. They’re the compact ones that were manufactured before the war and it’s clear that the Gunners are in the process of setting up some automated defenses.

After a few tense seconds, MacCready set out across the bridge in a low trot and as they reach the opposite side, Deacon can hear the noise of laughter and conversation from around a couple corner to the left. That must be where the breakroom is. MacCready leads him through the destroyed remnants of an old lab that the bridge had entered immediately into, forgoing the hall that would take them to the breakroom, and slipping through a busted section of wall into another lab. In here, the ceiling has also collapsed into another ramp and MacCready heads up while Deacon silently wishes for less climbing. 

There’s a door the top and again MacCready pauses, listening. Then he carefully pulls the door open, the automatic system catching it after a second and pulling it fully back, and steps slowly into the room. Deacon hangs back but when there’s no shouts or gunfire, he slips into the room behind MacCready, pulling the handle to close the door behind him. The place looks like it was some sort of processing area for lab results, with computer servers and specialized medical equipment lining the sides of the room. There’s one working terminal set up on a wheeled cart that must have been pulled from elsewhere because the equipment in here doesn’t appear to be operational anymore. 

“We just got the backup generator up and running a couple days ago,” MacCready whispers, which explains the lighting situation in the building. He half expected to be lead around via lantern, “and have been checkin’ for workin’ equipment.” He looks around the room with a strange sort of expression. “I thought maybe…with all this medical stuff—” MacCready cuts himself off with a sharp head shake and moves to watch the door the came in through. “Be quick.”

Deacon takes a seat in the desk chair in front of the terminal and sets to work. There’s a password but once he gets into the reset area, he finds that it isn’t all that difficult. He scans the possibilities until he finds something that Gunner might pick for their password, like for instance ‘fuckofffrankie’, and bingo. There isn’t much on the terminal. A short text file with orders from Captain Wes and another with observations about the area around GreeneTech. It seems oddly incomplete given that they’ve been here for at least two weeks now, but…if they’ve taken this long to get power back to the building, then there might be paper reports somewhere and the data just hasn’t been transferred. 

Deacon checks the drawer of the rolling table and finds a single holotape that likely held the original orders from Captain Wes and plugs it, copying the data on the terminal before pocketing the tape. Then he starts looking through the papers scattered on the various work areas around the room, looking for ones with fresh writing on them. As he shuffles through the papers, pocketing the ones that seem relevant, there’s the sound of heavy footsteps on the ramp outside the door. Deacon’s head shoots up and he looks at MacCready, who slings his rifle off his shoulder and grips it like one might a baseball. He waves at Deacon, telling him to stay put and in the line of site, while he presses himself against the wall that’s at a right angle to the door.

As the L-T steps into the room, Deacon does his best impression of a startled radstag and starts babbling. “Okay, so I can totally explain this. See, when you handcuff a guy to a chair, you really gotta check and make sure that the cuffs are good and tight, cause your boys got a little sloppy with the whole thing and bam! One escaped trader. I bet Grady will rip them a new one, eh? Boy, does she have a mean backhand. Look at this mess!” Deacon points at his cheek and his rapid-fire words seem to have surprised the Gunner as much as his presence in the room, but the moment Deacon pauses to show off his bruise, the man starts to recover and draws his laser rifle while moving forward. MacCready swings his rifle hard and the flat side of the stock catches the L-T with a solid _crack_ to his face that lays him out on the floor.

Nice to see that effort he put into teaching the Little Lamplight kids baseball paid off. “That’s a home run, right there,” Deacon observes and MacCready spares him a _‘Does this look like the fuckin’ time for jokes?’_ look. 

The Gunner groans, dazed, blood spurting from his likely broken nose, and MacCready goes for his gun, killing the merc with a few shots from the laser rifle. Deacon moves up behind him and MacCready tosses him the rifle before the kid picks up a couple grenades looped to the Lieutenant’s belt. 

“They probably heard that downstairs. We gotta move. He should have a few cells for that thing on him,” MacCready says and Deacon starts checking the Lieutenant’s pockets, wondering if he’s got time to grab the man’s combat chest piece before he decides to go for it.

Deacon quickly unbuckles it around the side and then quickly strips off his suit jacket, shoving all the notes and the holotape in pockets of his jeans. Then, Deacon yanks the armour off, making a bit of a racket at the back of the chest piece scraps against the floor under the dead weight of the Lieutenant. 

“ _Rhett,_ ” MacCready hisses as they hear the calls of the other Gunners that are in the breakroom, asking if the L-T is alright. Deacon throws the armour over his own head and picks up the laser rifle again, trying to find space for the couple fusion cells he looted and juggling it all as MacCready leads him out of the large double doors on the other side of the room.

They round a couple of corners before ending up on the higher bridge they spotted before that spanning the length of the central area. MacCready spares the lower bridge a quick glance, but otherwise, they race across the length, back to the other side of the building. As they make it to across, there’s a shout behind them from the lower bridge and few bullets ping off the wall. They rush down another hall, running past derelict offices, and MacCready skids to a halt just as they round another corner. “We've gotta go out onto a balcony and’ll be exposed. You ready?”

Deacon shakes his head and shoves his rifle at MacCready as he pockets the fusion cells awkwardly in his jeans and buckles the combat armour on properly, yanking the straps tight. He takes back the rifle and checks to make sure the safety on it is off before he nods. MacCready trots up to the doorway, leaning out slightly to check if the bridge they’d just crossed has Gunners on it. The bullets that pepper the frame tell them that answer. MacCready swears. On the opposite side of the doorway, the wall has been blown out by something, so there’s very little space for cover. They’re sitting ducks if they can’t keep moving; the Gunners’ will flank them from behind soon enough.

Frantically, Deacon looks around for something that might be of use to them, and his dress shirt gets caught on a sharp piece of metal behind him, tearing a hole in the upper sleeve. He makes a face of annoyance until he notices that the metal paneling of the wall has come loose and is sitting in the free space between the brackets and the lower panel. Deacon peeks down the hall they came down and asks MacCready to give him one of the grenades. 

“Okay, so we’re gonna use this metal panel as mobile cover, help me pull it free,” Deaco says as MacCready hands him the frag.

They quickly set down their rifles and grab the free edges of the panel, yanking it up. It scraps and catches against the other side of the bottom panel and refuses to come free. MacCready kicks the bottom of the wall and that seems to do the trick, allowing them to pull it up and out. It’s not that heavy, so it probably won’t stop a barrage of bullets, but it’s better than nothing and at the very least, it’ll keep laser fire at bay. Thankfully, Deacon doesn’t recall seeing any plasma weapons among this group. 

MacCready checks the bridge again as he slings his rifle back over his shoulder. “We’ve got Gunners incoming.”

Deacon does the same and looks down the hall, watching the Gunners peek around the frame of the archway. “I throw this, then we wait three seconds before heading out onto the balcony.” He looks back quickly to see MacCready’s grim nod before Deacon pulls both the safety clip and pin and tosses the frag down the hall. He hopes he did it right so that the frag rolls up to the bridge archway and not past it. Then, Deacon grabs his end of the metal panel, hoisting it up and holding it against his torso. 

They count down silently, then head for the door as quickly as they can while awkwardly holding a metal panel as a makeshift shield. They bang through the door in a Stooge-esque fashion that would have Deacon laughing in any other situation, but has panic rising in his throat every second they bang clumsily about. The frag goes off, shaking the entire floor and there’s shouting from the Gunners in the chaos that ensues. Of course, being the consummate professional that they are, the chaos only last for a few seconds at most before bullets start denting and then tearing holes in the metal panel. 

MacCready hisses as they move as fast they can toward the stairs at the other end of the balcony, but Deacon isn’t sure if that’s because he’s been hit or is just annoyed by their current predicament and Jesus he’s never realized how vulnerable his legs are until just this moment. Suddenly, power armour doesn’t seem like such an annoying piece of cumbersome technology after all. They’ve almost reached the door that leads to the stairs when one of the Gunners finally seems to understand that shooting the metal panel is dumb when their legs are sticking out from underneath it and takes out MacCready’s left leg.

He buckles with a cry and goes down one knee, the metal panel slipping from his grasp. Deacon drops his end and grabs MacCready under him arms, half-dragging him, half-throwing him into the cover of the doorway to the stairs. Their reprieve is temporary and MacCready is swearing a blue streak that’s making Deacon blush in its creativity, but at least he’s isn’t in too much pain to talk. That’s the kind of pain that means this little adventure is about to end real quick. Deacon slings one of MacCready’s arms around his shoulders and together they get MacCready standing again. Now it’s a bad case of one injured asshole leading another as Deacon helps MacCready hobble up the stairs. 

“We just planning to jump off the top or did you actually have somethin' in mind?” Deacon grits out as MacCready points to yet _another_ flight of stairs and he’ll never complain about elevators again. Never.

“There’s an express elevator on this floor. Figured—ugh, figured we’d ride it down. Didn’t plan on being hobbled.” 

“Does anyone? Look, can you put any weight on it? ‘Cause, we’re royally fucked if we don’t move a little faster.” Deacon can hear the Gunners’ boots pounding the floor after them, moving closer with every passing second. “Or better, yet, got a stim?”

MacCready shakes his head. “Can’t. They make me violently sick.”

Well, aren’t they just a pair?

“Sick is better than dead.”

“It’s not. It’s really, really not. I’m getting’ sick just thinkin’ about it.”

“Yeah…that’s probably shock,” Deacon replies. 

“Great.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Deacon pulls MacCready along faster and though it’s obviously painful for him, the kid just clenches his jaw and moves as fast at Deacon wants. With the burst of adrenaline from the balcony, Deacon’s knee is barely a twinge of pain somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, now more focused on getting out alive than anything else. He won’t even let himself consider how to get out of the building if they make it the elevator because if he does the very real possibly of failing will freeze his brain.

MacCready points them into a large room with horrid orange walls and red carpets that make Deacon glad that the world that was totally okay with this eyeball wrecking colour combo was destroyed by nuclear fire. There was strip on the floor just before the doors that told them that this horrid room was Restricted Access and Deacon thinks there must be a trigger around here to lock the room down, while simultaneously hoping that it isn’t on some long dead console. As they reach the duel secretaries’ desks at the far side of the room, Deacon tells MacCready to keep going while he looks for the trigger. 

He hops over the little dividing wall of the desk on the right and quickly runs his hands under the desk’s top and well as on all the shelves, checking for anything that might be a button or a switch or _something_ but there’s nothing and he can hear the Gunners stalking down the hall, a little slower now, afraid they might walk into an ambush. Ha! Deacon wishes. He dashes over to the second secretary desk on the left and shoves ancient debris off the shelves as he desperately searches for something that might not even exist. 

Then, his fingers run over a raise little something that doesn’t move and Deacon almost cries in relief. He presses the button firmly, praying that it still works and after second or two a pair of flashing yellow light start cycling and a loud fritzing sound screeches from the speakers in the room that probably used to say something like “Lock-down procedures initiated,” or whatever. There’s spray of gunfire as a Gunner points his rifle blindly into the room and Deacon waits a second for the clip to run dry before he hops over the dividing wall and skids through the door as it slides firmly closed. Yes! That should buy them a bit of time. 

Deacon turns and at the top of _another_ staircase (seriously, who designed this building?) MacCready is holding open the elevator doors for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I try not to cut a chapter in the middle of the action, but this was getting too long. Also, that button wasn’t just a conveniently placed plot device. [It actually exists!](https://picload.org/image/rwgoriaa/greenetech.png)
> 
> And just so we’re clear, ‘scunt’ means to scrap and cut/rip something. It’s not some derogatory combination of words. Maybe it’s only a Canadianism, but I grew up hearing it all the time, especially if someone face planted into the road while riding a bike.
> 
> Also, I accidently gave Winlock's personality to Barnes. Oops. Oh well, I like it better this way. Winlock should be the fiery one and Barnes the more methodical one.


	28. I was raised in the country, been working in the town. Been in trouble since I set my suitcase down.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your face, my thane, is as a book where men_   
>  _may read strange matters. To beguile the time,_   
>  _look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,_   
>  _your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,_   
>  _but be the serpent under't._
> 
> _-Macbeth (1.5.63)_

As the elevator doors close behind Rhett, MacCready sinks to the floor. Nausea crawls up his throat and his leg throbs with pain. Rhett hits the button for the bottom floor before he crouches next to him, wincing slightly as he does so, and gently touching the area around MacCready’s calf where the bullet ripped a nice little hole. Didn’t catch his bone though, at least he doesn’t think it did, but it makes walking on it pretty much a bust. And now they’re speeding toward the ground floor with no plan beyond getting out of the Gunner compound _alive._ 3,000 caps aren’t enough compensation for this bullshit.

“35 hundred?” Rhett asks, pinning him with a gaze that is both amused and serious, and fuck, he must have said that aloud.

“Can’t spend caps if I’m dead and they’re probably waitin’ for us at the bottom,” Mac replies, instead of addressing 500 cap raise because who the hell has 3,500 caps to just throw around? Jesus, somebody die and leave Rhett a nice stack of caps? Did he become the Commonwealth’s, Tenpenny while MacCready was gone?

Rhett’s only response is a hum of agreement and he glances up at the dial at the top of the elevator that helpfully ticks down the floors as they get closer to the ground. “Got a knife?” he asks, looking back down at MacCready, who nods and pulls his combat knife from the sheath at his waist with a grunt before handing it over. 

“If you come anywhere near my leg with that thing, I _will_ shoot you,” Mac tells him and Rhett flashes him a grin. Then, just before the ground floor, he rams the emergency stop button with his fist, and the elevator shudders to a sudden stop. Rhett uses the blade of the knife to pry the doors open, and after the initial strong-arming, some automatic catch pulls them back and out of the way. The floor of the second story is about three feet above the floor of the elevator and they’re very vulnerable like this, but at least they haven’t walked into an ambush. Yet.

Rhett slips the knife into his boot and helps Mac stand again, muttering about how this would be so much easier with a stim. MacCready almost tells him to fuck off but clamps down on the words. He made a promise and even if his Lucy’s dead, he’s going to damn well keep it. And if he swears in his head? Well, who the fuck is gonna know? 

Rhett climbs up and out of the elevator, giving the second-floor platform a cursory sweep for hostiles before he reaches back down and pulls MacCready out. Mac just gets his feet under him when there are shouts from the bridge above them, and Rhett fires a few laser shots up, to force the Gunners into cover. Then, he sweeps an arm under Mac’s and pulls him along at a pace that MacCready can’t quite keep up with, but knows if he doesn’t he’ll die here and he can’t. _Not just yet._

There’s a section of stairs to their immediate right, but Rhett ignores it and pulls them through the archway to the left and into the main entrance area of the building. The Gunners’ bullets start ricocheting off the floor and walls around them and Rhett stumbles when the metal shards of one impact catch him by surprise along the right side of his arm. He hisses and swears but keeps going so it mustn’t be that bad. 

There’s a collapsed section of stairs directly in front of them, just past the archway, and they could slide down them to the bottom floor, but there’s a lot of crap sitting at the bottom that no one’s bothered to clear, so they push past it for the railing at the far end of the platform instead. 

MacCready lets go of Rhett as they stop in front of the railing, grasping it and lowering himself back down to the floor, vision swimming for a moment now that he’s suddenly still. Rhett is firing a few shots behind them trying to keep the Gunners back and to prevent them from rushing, but that’s not going to last long. Mac hoists himself down and under the railing, flipping onto his stomach and lowering himself down as much as possible to the bottom floor before letting go of the railing’s newel. 

He tries to land on his better leg, but it’s weak from being asked to shoulder the weight of the other one and buckles slightly as he hits the ground, forcing Mac to compensate with the other and he lets out a yelp of pain as he stumbles. As he rights himself, a Gunner that managed to get to the lower floor quick enough to catch him off guard, rams the stock of his rifle into MacCready’s back, sending him sprawling to the floor. Mac scrambles to turn over, trying to bring his rifle around to get a shot in before the Gunner gets him first, but as MacCready moves, rifle refusing to move as fast as the rest of him, he already knows that he isn’t going to win. Stupid why to die. _Fuck!_ He should’ve told Rhett to take his caps and—

Rhett suddenly lands heavily on the back of the Gunner, sliding awkwardly down and scrambling for purchase as his blade flashes and he drives it into the muscle of the man’s back, forcing him down as the Gunner’s legs give under their sudden combined weight. The man grunts and then shouts, but it trails off into a gurgling sound as Rhett shoves the knife into the Gunner’s neck, ripping it slightly forward accidentally as the man goes to his hands and knees. As Rhett yanks it back out, a bit of arterial spray catches him along the side of his face and shoulder before he pulls back and out of its path. He makes a face of disgust and then one of dismay as he picks at his blue shirt and MacCready can feel nausea crawling back again so strong he thinks he might be sick.

He closes his eyes and breathes, trying to will the sensation away; he can feel his hands start to shake. Some fucking merc he’s become if he wants to barf at the sight of blood.

Rhett spares no time in tucking the blade away again and then pulls MacCready back to his feet. He hasn’t bothered with the blood save for the few smudge marks around his eyes and near his mouth where he’s hastily wiped it away and holy fuck don’t look at that, don’t even _think_ about it getting in Rhett’s mouth. _Fuck._ There was a damn good reason he killed people from a comfortable 6, 7, 8 hundred yards because this up close and personal, bodily fluids all over, bullshit is so not for him. Not like he didn’t know Rhett favoured the knife-in-the-back techniques, hell he carried a stealth boy, knife, and a pistol last time they met. If that doesn’t scream close quarters, Mac doesn’t know what does. But knowing a getting a fucking 10 cap show are two very different things. 

“Breathe, kid,” Rhett tells him, voice low as he leads MacCready to the exit. Mac grits his teeth and pulls in a deep breath of air. Rhett smells like blood and ozone from the laser rifle and it’s not so bad, familiar even given his recent employment, and more importantly, it’s steadying. That’s good because the moment they step outside, half-a-dozen guns are pointed at them. Rhett’s borrowed laser rifle thumps to the ground.

They stop just outside the door, the dark of the night nearly on them, both seemingly sparing a moment to curse long and loud in their heads. Obviously, they should’ve thought about the Gunners outside the building, and not just the ones in it. _Shit._

Grady is leading against the top end of the stair’s railing, smirking at the two of them, not at all upset over the death of the Lieutenant (and really, fuck that guy). Unfortunately, they’ve done her a favour and MacCready hates doing something for nothing, especially for that cold bitch.

“Forgot about all these guys, MacCready?” she asks as she pushes off the railing and stalks closer. “Didn’t really think this through, did ya? You never were all that bright.”

“Go fuck yourself, Grady,” Mac snarls.

“Maybe I will. Today seems worth celebrating. And you little trader, we’ve underestimated your fierceness.” Grady draws a finger through the blood on Rhett’s face and MacCready suddenly gets it, sees what’s been niggling him ever since he first met the man. 

Rhett perpetually downplays his appearance as a merc, his capabilities, and even his height (which is going to really fuck up Mac’s shoulder in the long run from his arm being slung over Rhett’s. How do people even get that tall? Sunlight?) for reasons MacCready doesn’t understand. Mac’s always having to prove himself capable. No one ever looks at him and thinks ‘badass merc’. Why would anyone want to be underestimated? 

“Did your guards actually die, or did you just tire of their noise?” Grady asks, darkly amused. 

And because Rhett seems to enjoy fucking with people’s perceptions of himself, he grins at her and says, “Maybe, I never had guards to begin with.” Grady’s smirk disappears. “What? You thought you could just set up shop this far north and no one would raise a finger to stop you?”

Before she gets a chance to question just what Rhett means with that statement, the Gunners’ that had been following them through the building, explode out of the door behind them, running over Rhett and MacCready, and causing a commotion as they all try to right themselves in the chaos. Grady is shouting at them and suddenly, there’s the distant crack of an assault rifle and the bullets ping across the front of the building. Everything stops for a second as they’re caught off guard by it, and then everyone is suddenly rushing for cover. 

A Gunner next to Mac, Zander, goes down as a spray of bullets catches him without his usual armour. 

Someone grabs Rhett, but he gives them a solid uppercut that knocks them back and away.

Crawford goes for MacCready’s coat, trying to keep him from leaving while they deal with whoever is shooting at them. 

Rhett’s supporting arm is suddenly gone from under him and Mac stumbles with the loss of it, trying to find footing that doesn’t cause spikes of pain to shoot up his leg. 

Rhett appears at his other side, blade flashing again as he cuts Crawford down and then he grabs Mac under both arms, dragging him toward the edge of the entrance platform. 

Laser fire flashes above MacCready’s head, but Rhett seems oblivious to it. 

Bradley turns on them with a shout about them escaping and Mac puts a hole in his chest the size of a first, his sniper rifle jarring him painfully because he didn’t have time to properly brace it. _Cock-sucking sonuvabitch!_ His entire side suddenly feels like it’s on fire. 

Rhett yanks him to the edge and slides over, pulling Mac after him with a firm arm around the top of his chest. The only word of warning he gets before they tumble off the edge is "Hold on to your gun," and then he's falling. A few bullets spray the edge as he disappears, Dressler shouting after them, and even though his side burns with every intake of breath, Mac slides the bolt back on his rifle releasing the spent cartridge and rams it forward again to prime it for another shot he hopes he doesn't have to take. 

Then they hit the ground, Rhett stumbling under their weight, cursing in his ear loud enough to hear over the ringing in them from his previous shot (usually MacCready has time to put in earplugs, otherwise he'd be deaf by now—he still remembers his hearing disappearing that first time he fired his old rifle in Little Lamplight, the sound echoing so loudly in cave that their Lucy forbid it from being fired again until protection could be found) and Mac pulls the rifle up properly this time, bracing it against his shoulder, breathing through the pain lancing up his leg to join the pain in his side just as Dressler's torso appears over the edge of the platform they slid off. 

Mac fires. The .50 calibre round blowing clean through Dressler's combat armour at this range and Rhett has the thankful foresight to yank them both to the side to avoid Dressler's body as it falls, a splatter of blood hitting their boots as his head cracks against the sidewalk.

A sudden snatch of a tune drifts in from across the street, and MacCready peers at the looted buildings wondering if he imaged it, or if he mistook it for the ringing in his ears. Impossibly, he hears it again between the echoing of the gunfire and the tune twigs a sense of familiarity in the back of his brain. Then, Rhett, directing Mac to hop on his back, piggyback style, because his injured side prevents them from carrying on how they were before and his face burns with the humiliation of it, hums a few bars as he scans the store fronts across from them. Not his imagination then. The gunfire from the as of yet unseen enemy keeps pinging around them, making sure that the Gunners never have much of an opportunity to scramble after them. That and the general chaos resulting from the L-T being shot and only about half of the Gunners willing to follow Grady—her shouts can be heard echoing around them. 

Once Mac has his rifle braced lengthwise across Rhett's chest, Rhett takes off at a jog across the street, cursing ever other step. MacCready clenches his jaw against the jostling pain and tries to focus on something else, like how stupid he feels about this current situation. _God damnit._ Ozone from a few laser rifles shots burn around them, as Rhett makes a beeline for an alleyway, skidding to a stop around a corner further down and to the right. The tune from before is whistled to their left and a woman appears from the destroyed side door of a building. She has an assault rifle propped over one shoulder and the feral look of a regular chem user. She gives them a smirk as Rhett returns the next few bars of the song. 

"I do often wish you had a brain, Dee. This was probably your worst plan to date," she says and then gives MacCready a critical look. "What's with the backpack?"

"He's a fashion accessory. Merc backpacks are all the rage right now. Also, not the worst plan, but a definite runner up." Rhett twists slightly to check behind them. "Where's the rendezvous?"

"Delta."

"Lead the way then, oh great saviour."

The woman throws another smirk Rhett's way. "I expect an offering of Mentats later."

Rendezvous Delta is a destroyed building that looks just like all the other destroyed buildings in this area (Cambridge? Canbridge? Carbridge? What-the-fuck-ever) and doesn't seem to have thing special about it. Of course, Mac is looking at this whole area through the haze of being nearly unconscious so he can't say that his ability to pick up details is functioning properly right now. He wants to close his eyes completely and just rest for a bit, but Rhett keeps talking to him and expecting replies so Mac can't drift off like he wants to. 

Another three unfamiliar faces join them when they reach the rendezvous, and there are urgent words spoken between them all. Without Rhett talking to him, Mac finds it much easier to drift off, the sounds growing distant. He's jostled awake again as pain zings through his leg and side as he's pulled off Rhett's back. Then, Rhett appears in front of him. 

"Don't go anywhere Mac," Rhett tells him, seriousness in every line on his face. "You hear me?" There's something familiar about Rhett, his face is different but his voice, his mannerisms... Pain shoots through him again as Mac is hauled up and jostled along at a pace much quicker than before as two people carry him along like a wayward sack of tatoes. He makes noises of pain and thinks fleetingly that a rib must be busted from his fuck up from before. 

"Wizard of Oz," MacCready mumbles, sudden clarity reaching him through the fog of pain. "...That song. Knew it was familiar." Rhett starts whistling the tune again and it filters in and out of his brain, snatches of remembered words attaching themselves to certain parts but it's been so long since he's seen that movie, since he was last in Little Lamplight, since he last saw...

"—serious, MacCready if you die on me now I'll fuckin' shoot you."

Mac blinks against the sudden bright light in his face, then Rhett leans over him and blocks it out, his hair looking like a wildfire with the light framing it. "...That doesn't make sense," Mac mutters.

"Well, Mick-Mac don't die and you won't have to worry about it," Rhett snaps back and…what did he just say?

"Get him a stim," a man says, his words punctuated by the tearing of MacCready's pant leg and Mac struggles slightly, protesting. God, _anything_ but that.

"He can't handle one right now," Rhett replies. "Callie, I need some paste. Jolene, you got that water?"

"Right here," a woman answers.

"He'll need fluids," an oddly familiar and artificial voice says from somewhere above MacCready.

"Right now, he'll probably vomit up any water we give him," Rhett replies voice tight as he washes the blood of Mac's leg. It doesn't even hurt anymore. Is that bad? That's probably bad.

"I meant an IV line," the artificial voice replies. 

"Not a doctor."

"And if you do nothing, he may not survive the night."

Rhett doesn't answer, just works on MacCready's leg. Then, a woman slides into view carrying a small jar and wordlessly hands it over. 

"He's a lot worse than Drummer was after that Courser attack. JH probably has a point," the man who wanted to stick him with a stim says. Mac squints at him and thinks he helped carry him to...this place. Where ever this is. 

"Then why don’t you do it?" Rhett snaps, an angry tint to his voice as he smears whatever was in the jar in and on MacCready's bullet wound.

“If you won’t, yeah, I'll chance it,” stim guy replies, frown etched on his face. “But you’re the one who tells people how to reset _your own_ dislocated shoulder. Seems pretty obvious why you gotta do it.”

Rhett bows his head for a moment, looking both angry and scared. Not a good combo. "I'm not…him," Rhett says, looking up and away from Mac at some undefined point. "I don't have his skills or knowledge. If I fuck this up..."

MacCready grabs Rhett’s arm, focusing his attention back on him and hoping that his voice doesn’t waver, “Don’t fuck it up, then,” he says and Rhett gives a hesitant nod.

\- - - - -

Consciousness comes reluctantly back some time later. How later, MacCready has no idea. Long enough that the inside of his mouth tastes like brain fungus and he needs to piss. He shifts on the bed, meaning to get up and relieve himself, but every single muscle is stiff and refuses to move with any sort of amenity. He groans and falls back into his original position, side sending needles of pain radiating through his chest and his shot leg feels like Joseph hit him with one of his nasty Charlie horses. Mac has to spend a few moments with his full bladder before he gets the courage to try moving again. This time, he shifts through the pain, hoping that if he can get walking again some of the stiffness will ease.

He makes it to the door with plenty of silent swears and grunts just as a young woman opens it from under his hand. A noise of surprise escapes her as he quickly braces himself on the door’s frame wincing at the pain that fast movement causes, before her face shifts into a relieved smile and he wonders just how bad things were if that’s her expression on seeing him up and about. With a jar and a bundle of bandages in her hands, she points down the hall to MacCready’s right and tells him that the bathroom is two doors down on the left. “There’s a bucket of water next to it for flushing,” she adds as he hobbles away from her with a word of thanks, knowing he won’t be able to lift it and feeling moderately bad about it.

On his way back, panting ungracefully he might add, Mac spares the hall a more thorough look. The place has that shabby pre-war look that every building constructed by Old World does, but everything is well-kept and clearly lived in. All the rooms he passes are repurposed offices that are now bedrooms and at the end of the hall, it opens up into a wide space and sunlight streams through the large windows. That surprises him the most. It’s hard to find places with intact windows, much less ones that size—he still doesn’t know how the window in GreeneTech survived all these years. Part of him wants to explore more, to get a better feeling for this place, but he’s tired from walking, hungry, and still _painfully_ sore. The comfort of his bed is much more enticing right now. 

At first, he guesses the wrong door (they all look the same) but he gets it right on the second try and is surprised to find Rhett waiting for him on the room’s another bed, a new pair of sunglasses perched on his face and the yellowing of a healing bruise just visible on his cheek. MacCready thought the woman might be waiting for him, probably to redress his wound if her supplies were any indication, and instead, he has _Rhett._ Oh well, at least Rhett doesn’t give him a grin. He’s not sure he could handle such cheeriness after everything. Mac mumbles a greeting and sinks backs onto his mattress. 

“Glad you aren’t dead,” Rhett replies, watching as MacCready makes himself comfortable. It’s a slow process between his bum leg and buggered ribs. Then, he moves to sit on the edge of Mac’s bed, sliding a pot of water across the gap between the beds.

“You didn’t fu—ugh, mess it up,” Mac agrees. He has to get back to his non-swearing ways. His Lucy will forgive his previous transgressions, right? He was in a lot of pain and swears are a great analgesic (their Lucy, Little Lamplight’s that is, taught him that word for painkilling—that’s how he differentiates in his head: his Lucy and their Lucy). 

Rhett gives him a weird look for his correction, but MacCready has gotten pretty good at ignoring such looks. 

“So, can I get some food? Nearly dying makes a guy hungry, ya know?”

“All too well,” Rhett replies, “Jeeves’ll get you somethin’ just as soon as I’m done with this.” Rhett carefully pulls back the pant leg of the pajamas that have clearly seen better days and Mac is not going to think about _how_ he managed to get undressed and dressed again while passed out. He’d probably die of embarrassment if he did.

MacCready watches Rhett work at unwrapping the rust coloured bandage, hissing slightly as the wrap pulls at the half-formed scab. Rhett makes a commiserating noise but doesn’t stop or slow in his movements. “How long was I out?” Mac asks.

“Almost two days. Worried you wouldn’t make it.”

Jeez…

“Yeah, well…serve me right for letting you talk me into turnin’ on the Gunners for 35 hundred caps.”

Rhett’s grin makes an appearance. “Oh, so now you want the raise?”

“Damn right I do. I’ll take every cap I can get, especially if this’s gonna be the friggin’ norm.”

“Lump sum or installments?”

MacCready hesitates. He wants it all, if nothing else because what if Rhett dies and he doesn’t get paid, but the thing is, he doesn’t have any place to keep such a large sum of caps and he can’t have them jangling on his belt for everyone to gawk at. That’s just an invitation for some raider asshole to try and take your fucking head off. 

Rhett starts washing out his wound, breaking MacCready from his thoughts when the pain causes him to flinch, and says, “I’ve left some of my caps with a friend, if he knows they now belong to you, you could just leave them there and take what you need,” apparently reading Mac’s hesitation.

MacCready snorts. “And what’s to stop him from just keepin’ them if somethin’ happens to you? I think I’ll take my chances.” What those chances might be, who the hell knows...

“He’s a regular saint, Mac, so I wouldn‘t worry about that, but they’re your caps. You can do what you want with ‘em.” Rhett shrugs and MacCready huffs. Silence settles on them as Rhett finishes cleaning his leg. “It looks pretty good. Should heal with minimal scarring.”

“Yeah, if I can keep off it long enough for that.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Rhett replies with an apologetic look on his face before Mac feels a sharp pinch in his leg, “You’ll be right as irradiated rain tomorrow.”

MacCready’s stomach rolls, nausea rising like a wave as Rhett finishes injecting him with the stimpak. “You _sonuvabitch,_ ” Mac snarls as a cold sweat breaks out along his forehead and collar bone, his body starts to shake.

Rhett nods in agreement. “Sorry pal, I can’t wait a month for you to be travel ready.” He pushes the bucket over to the head of MacCready’s bed, “In case you need to hurl,” then he settles on the other bed. 

Mac doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of appreciating that foresight and curls into a ball as that usually helps with the shakes, but he’s not stupid, he won’t face away from the bucket. Though without food for the last two days, Mac doesn’t imagine that there will be much to vomit when he can’t ignore the sensation any longer. 

“I know what it’s like to get an injection against your will,” Rhett says as he spreads a few papers on the bed. “So, for that I’m sorry.”

“ _F-fuck. Y-you._ ”

Rhett nods again and busies himself with his papers. 

MacCready shivers, both cold and hot at the same time and tries to kick the covers down far enough so he can pull them up and over himself again. After struggling unsuccessfully for a few moments, Rhett stands and helps yank the covers out from under his legs and then pulls them over Mac’s shoulders. MacCready just glares at Rhett, clutching the blankets close, as Rhett moves back to his bed. 

There’s a long time of silence, punctuated only by the shuffling of papers and Rhett’s pencil moving over them. Every once and a while he makes a noise disagreement with whatever is on them and erases and sketches something new. Without anything else to look at, except for the inside of his eyelids, Mac watches him work, somewhat curious as to what it is he's doing. Then a particularly nasty shake wracks his body and MacCready goes back to being angry and sick and miserable. 

He vomits bile a couple of times and time passes in a nauseated haze. How much time, MacCready doesn’t know. 2 hours, 6? It’s long enough that the sunlight lighting the hall outside the door fades from bright yellow to hues of pinks and purples, and his sickness fades from being unbearable to just being inconvenient as the shakes disappear into a few infrequent shivers. Come the morning he should be okay, with only a lingering sensation of queasiness and a mild headache. 

Looking over at the other bed, Mac sees Rhett lightly dozing in the gloom, his papers shuffled into a stack and set aside. Then, from outside the room, there’s the sound of a thruster making its way up the hall and a moment later a Mr. Handy robot appears in the doorway. MacCready’s eyebrows raise in slight surprise, there aren’t many of those left in Wastes. It bustles through the door with ease considering its width and chipperly greets Mac as it sets down a tray of hot soup and several sandwiches.

“Good evening, Master MacCready. I hope you’ve overcome your nausea enough to chance something to eat. Indeed, your ill effect might be partially due to a lack of food for past two days.”

Mac eyes one of the robot’s eye…things as he carefully sits up in bed, head swimming. “Maybe…”

“Oo! Did Stockton send you guys brahmin meat as well?” Rhett asks as he leans over and grabs a half a sandwich, taking a huge bite. So much for dozing, was he even sleeping to begin with? The robot hums in a confirmation. “Jeeves, you’ve really outdone yourself this time, five-star sandwich right here.” 

“Always pleased to hear that, Master Bertram.”

“Seriously, Mac, try one of these. So good.”

MacCready frowns at Rhett as he chomps away on his sandwich and reaches for the soup bowl instead, not exactly feeling up to solid food right now. 

“If there’s anything else you need, just call for me,” the robot says to them before floating out of the room.

The soup is good. Better than he’s had in months and months and it helps with the lingering queasiness he has—must have been low blood sugar. When he’s finished with half the bowl, Mac sets it down in favour of one of the glasses of water on the tray. 

“So…Bertram? Dee? Rhett? You got as many names as faces, or what?” MacCready asks, eyeing Rhett (or whoever) with some distrust.

“Not quite,” Rhett replies.

Mac waits a moment, but nothing further is forthcoming. “Well, what the hell do I call you? Rhett even your real name?”

“No, but…Deacon is about as close as I get these days.”

He wonders if 35 hundred caps are even worth this continuing escapade. The only thing he had to worry about a couple days ago was questionable contracts and keeping people’s grubby hands off his comics. Now he has this mess. _That’s what you get for being a greedy sonuvabitch, RJ. Next time, think with your brain, not your empty purse._

“Deacon is a stupid name,” MacCready grumbles into his water glass and to his annoyance, Deacon breaks into laughter at that. 

They stay at the skyscraper another day to make sure that MacCready is fully healed and well enough to start travelling. Everyone is pretty tight-lipped about what goes on at this place (Deacon mentioned once it was a ‘safehouse’), but beyond that Mac can feel the bubble around him that screams ‘not one of us’. He’s not trusted, which isn’t anything new, being a merc comes with a large amount of distrust on both sides, but it’s grating on his nerves because everyone is being nice and friendly to him and it makes that distrust especially jarring. 

MacCready never does hear that artificial voice again, either, which almost makes him believe he’d imagined it when he was delirious. Almost.

On the morning of the fourth day, they set out for Lexington. Deacon informed him that they were going to first take out a raider nest in the old Corvega plant and from there travel to Diamond City for Mac’s caps, and finally on to Quincy. When he questioned what the hell they needed to do in that Minutemen hellhole, Deacon grinned at him and said it was a surprise. Which is clearly code for _none of your fuckin’ business,_ so MacCready grumbled under his breath and didn’t ask again. 

As they walk, Deacon whistles songs that Mac hasn’t heard since he was a kid. Knick Knack used to tune the radio in his shop to the old Enclave Radio station at night when Three Dog went off air. MacCready can still hear the way the songs used to warble weirdly off the rock when he made his nightly rounds. He worries about the whistling giving away their position and watches the building around them with wariness, looking for that flash of sunlight glinting off a scope. Deacon doesn’t seem to share his apprehension about the area. Granted, Mac doesn’t know that much about the area north of Boston, so maybe this route is clear, or as clear as these things get in Wasteland. 

Mid-morning, they stop for a break near a bridge and MacCready takes a seat on the hood of an old Chryslus. His leg is sore from their walking, but otherwise working as it should. They share a quick snack while Deacon muses on the slogan of the particular Chryslus Mac has chosen as a seat.

“Do you suppose that when they said: ‘Nothing can stop a Highwayman,’ they included or excluded a nuclear apocalypse from that promise?”

MacCready shrugs and then considers. “Probably didn’t think it’d happen.” 

“Hmm. Kinda wished they’d thought that far ahead then. All this walking is _killing_ me.” Deacon slides into the driver’s seat of the car and sets his hands on the steering wheel. “Just imagine roaming the Wastes in one’a these.” He starts humming the chorus of _The Wanderer_ and Mac huffs a breath of laughter.

“Brotherhood’d probably just take it from you if you found a working one. If some other asshole didn’t steal it first.”

“That’s what locks are for.”

MacCready snorts. “Says the guy who picked a handcuff lock while wearin’ them.”

Deacon just grins and goes back to humming the song.

They follow the broken highway west toward Lexington. As the plant becomes visible on the horizon, they leave the road and start moving toward the center of the town through the brush rather than come up right beside the factory. MacCready imagines that there are sentries and maybe a sniper on the roof of the building so staying out of range until they’re out of sight is the best plan.

Mac sets up a sniping position on the roof of an apartment building that Deacon informs him has a good sight line and a clear path to its roof. He comments that Deacon seems to have done this before since he happens to know the best places to attack from and Deacon nods in agreement. "Once or twice," he confirms but MacCready can hear more times than that in his voice. Why lie about that? From the position, Mac makes quick work of the few raiders posted as sentries on the roof and surrounding structures. Deacon watches silently from behind, covering his ears and waiting.

When MacCready gives the all clear, they head cautiously up to the plant, Deacon leading, hand hovering over the button on his stealth boy. There are a couple raiders on guard duty near the front door that Mac didn't have a clear bead on before and they’re clearly agitated. It's not that unusual to hear gunshots echoing on the breeze anywhere in the Commonwealth, but that doesn't mean that you ignore them when you do. They hide behind the corner of the building and Deacon informs him he's going to take care of them while MacCready watches his back. 

“What else are you payin' me for?” Mac huffs.

“Your charming personality and good looks?” Deacon questions with a smirk and then vanishes under the cloak of his stealth boy. 

MacCready rolls his eyes and watches for any movement above and beyond where Deacon is heading. It doesn't take long for him to reappear in Mac's sights (not that he was ever unsure as to where Deacon was, what with the raiders collapsing suddenly and bleeding out onto the concrete) and Deacon waves him over. Mac tries to be professional about the two bloodied raiders lying on the ground, but they remind him of Deacon's flashing blade at GreeneTech and his annoyed look at the blood splashed on his face, and Mac has to look away. 

At that time, MacCready was more worried about surviving the Gunners than anything else, but flashing back now and seeing it through the lens of memory, another memory slides over it and makes him sick all over again: Lucy had blood splashed all over her face too. Yeah, that's probably the source of his queasiness these days with blood and MacCready tries to banish the memories.

Inside, there aren’t many raiders and judging by the conversation they overhear before Deacon goes all _¡La Fantoma!_ on them, they're looking to start serious recruiting. There must be something about this particular town, that has Deacon clearing this building again for the umpteenth time. It’s clear why the raiders like this place, it’s defensible, good vantage, near outskirts of Boston but not too close, and if the raiders ever got a large force together at this location they would be a huge pain in the ass for this half of the Commonwealth. The thing MacCready doesn't get is why this is Deacon's problem to solve. Yes, eventually this would be a problem for every major settlement in the Boston area, but from what he can tell they hardly trade with one another much less be willing to nip something like this in the bud through a joint mission. Plus, if they were going to shell out for something like this, they wouldn't just higher one merc who hired one more. They get a large group, hell they might even hire the Gunners, but he’s damn sure they wouldn’t throw caps at this Bottle and Cappy bullshit. 

There's something here MacCready isn’t seeing. Something he's not being allowed to see. Like he wasn't allowed to see in that skyscraper safehouse. It’s possible Deacon isn't even a merc, at least not the way that Mac’s a merc.

The raiders were certain that Lexington was unoccupied so they clearly didn’t expect Deacon and him to steal into their base of operations and wipe them out. MacCready is the distraction, picking off a few of the assholes from a distance and while they scramble to find him from the echoing sound of his rifle, andDeacon cuts them apart or melts them with that damn plasma pistol until the only signs of life left are them. Their spoils come in the form of looted caps and spare bullets and casings. The weapons the raiders have are shit, so they don't bother with them and soon enough they leave the Corvega plant empty save for the corpses of cars and raiders. 

On the road back south, Mac asks if they're resting at Bunker Hill for the night, but Deacon shakes his head and tells him that it only another couple of hours to Diamond City and there's plenty of light left in the afternoon for them to make it. MacCready is eager to get his hands the caps he’s owed, so he agrees to keep going. He's heard about the changes to the city since he was last in the Commonwealth, but hasn't much wanted to visit since he arrived back—Goodneighbour is a better place to get lost in and no one there had ever met his Lucy. It's just starting to get dark by the time they reach the gates of Diamond City, the days are starting to get noticeably longer now, and Deacon leads him through the market, then back behind it and down a street labeled ‘Third’. 

Ducking into a concrete alcove with a neon sign declaring the place to be Valentine's Detective Agency. Deacon knocks on the door and waits for a moment, and then two before the door unlocks and swings open to reveal a slender man about Mac's height with a curious and slightly concerned look on his face that settles on mild annoyance at seeing Deacon. 

“Did you lose it _again?_ Or is it in another pair of pants like last time?” the man asks as he steps back to let them in.

“It’s…somewhere,” Deacon replies with a shrug and a contrite smile, “Had to get a new bag I’m and not entirely sure where I stashed it. Nick out?”

“Yeah. Should be back tomorrow. Had to go to Bunker Hill.”

“Huh. Guess we just missed him then.” Deacon heads around the first desk and back toward a heavy safe sitting on the floor. “Just gotta raid the stash for my pal here. If you're on your way out, Lez, don't let us stop you.” 

“I won't,” Lez replies but doesn't move to leave and instead settles on the edge of the desk, watching Deacon’s back as he works on the safe's combination. Mac awkwardly stands next to the wall, feeling a bit out of place. “You stayin' the night?”

“Yep. If I don't see Nick, tell him I went to Quincy. Might roll back through after if I'm done there.” Deacon pulls the safe's door open, then he turns back to face the two of them. “Lez this is MacCready. Mac, that's Leslie, Nick Valentine's secretary and herder.” Leslie chuckles at the description, and MacCready settles on going for a simple head nod in greeting, but Leslie sticks out his hand for a shake so Mac takes it. It's brief, firm, and more calloused than he expected of someone who pushes papers all day. 

“I hired Mac for 35 hundred caps and I'm not sure if he wants to drag that jingling purse all over the 'Wealth,” Deacon continues, turning back to the safe, “Figured I'd show him they existed and that he could leave the bulk of them here if he wanted; that you and Nick wouldn’t give him any trouble if he showed up without me to collect.” 

“Rhett, I'm wounded you'd think so poorly of me. Of course, we wouldn't give your hired friend any trouble. Provided he didn't cause any.” Leslie gives MacCready a quick once over, trying to judge his worthiness. Then he sniffs and looks away. Mac feels like telling him to fuck right off, but he clamps down on the words for the sake of both his promise and the fact that if he really does decide to leave them he needs the good grace of this man to get at them later. 

“Be nice, Lez,” Deacon says with a smirk and pulls out one of two cash boxes in the safe, setting it on the desk. Mac notes the ‘J’ scrawled on the lid’s corner in a black marker. Odd. “Mac’s a merc with a heart of gold. Don’t hold his profession against him.”

“Why not? I hold it against you. After all, all you mercs think about is caps, right?” Leslie huffs, but MacCready can see the glimmer of a smirk on his face. “If you weren’t so terribly fond of Nick, I’d think you were a gold digger.”

Deacon bursts into laughter and Mac attempts to recall if he’s ever seen Nick Valentine before. He’s heard of the man of course, who in the ‘Wealth hasn’t? The Gunners used to talk about him with the same derision they reserved for the Minutemen so obviously, Valentine is an obnoxious do-gooder, but at least the man takes payment for his work. The Minutemen are so sickeningly sweet as to defer payment when possible. Little wonder they’re falling apart at the seams. Caps make this busted world go ‘round.

“Even if I was, Nick would just thank me for getting those pesky caps back into Diamond City’s economy,” Deacon replies and waves Mac over. “There’s 4,000 caps in here, 500 caps a bag,” he explains. MacCready lifts one of the leather bags and peers inside, the bottle caps catch the light of the office and jingle together as he shifts the bag in his hand. “Take one and leave the rest for another day. I’ll leave a note for Nick just in case.” Deacon glances at Leslie who just rolls his eyes and stands from the desk.

“Well since I can’t be trusted to convey even the simplest messages to Nick, you can _also_ leave him a note about going to Quincy. Lord knows I might just _forget_ about that.”

“Don’t go away mad,” Deacon says, smirk playing around the edges of his mouth.

Leslie moves toward the door. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he retorts but just before he disappears out the door he gives Deacon a quick wink. 

“Drama queen,” Deacon mutters with amusement and then looks at Mac. “Well? Satisfied?”

MacCready shoves the bag of caps in his sack and stares wistfully at the rest for a moment before something occurs to him. “Wait, is this all the caps you got?”

“Nah. Got another stash elsewhere. Don’t worry about chargin’ me outta house and home.”

“As if,” he huffs.

Deacon just throws an arm around his shoulders and grins. “Can’t kid a kidder, Mac. Anyways, think on it tonight and you can decide if you want them all in the morning.”

Before they leave the detective agency, Deacon locks both the safe and the door to the office, using a key he pulls from the pocket of his jeans for the later. MacCready lets out a small laugh when he sees it and Deacon tells him in a low voice that he likes winding Leslie up a bit about the key. Then he pulls out a leather strap from around his neck that has about five keys hanging from it and holds them all together so Mac can see that they are all the exact same cut. MacCready starts laughing in earnest.

“I haven’t lost a single one, but don’t tell, Lez.” Deacon gives him a wicked grin and tucks the leather strap back under his shirt and vest. 

They stop at Power Noodles for their supper, but the April evening is still a bit too cold to eat outside in so Deacon leads them to the Dugout with their hot bowls. The bartender greets them warmly as they look for a table in the crowded bar. A woman catches Deacon’s attention with a wave and they settle at her table as she gives Deacon a warm smile. 

“‘Bout time you showed up again,” she tells him as they dig into their noodle bowls “Just your luck that Nick’s outta town.”

“So, I heard. You still keepin’ tabs on him, then?” Deacon asks with a smirk.

“How can I not? Still feels like it’s my job—not that I don’t trust Lez, but…” She shrugs. “I’m not so busy that I can’t look out for a friend or two.” Then she peers at MacCready. “And who’s yours?”

Deacon gestures between the two of them. “Robert Joseph MacCready this is Ellie Perkins, Mayor of Diamond City.”

“Just MacCready is fine, or Mac,” he replies a little surprised and shoots a look at the side of Deacon’s face because he’s pretty damn sure he never told Deacon his first names. Hell, the last time he heard ‘Robert’ spoken aloud was by his Lucy…

Mayor Perkins reaches across the small table and gives his hand a quick shake. “I...have we met before? You look familiar.”

“Er…no? I don’t think so.” There was something striking about Perkins that had little to do with her looks, she had a ‘sit up listen’ vibe to her that Mac is pretty sure he would’ve remembered if they had met.

“He rolled through town in ’84. This time’a year actually. Ya know when Nick and I were…at odds. Might’ve seen him hanging out here then,” Deacon replies before he focuses on shoveling more noodles in his mouth. Perkins makes a noise of understanding and looks at MacCready again. 

“Must’ve been then. Got a pretty good memory for faces, not like Nick, of course, but all the same... Anyways, insert standard city spiel here about enjoying your stay and shopping in the market, yadda, yadda, yadda.” Perkins shrugs at Deacon huff of laughter. “I’m off the clock, sue me.”

“So, you’d be opposed to talkin’ shop?”

“Depends…”

“Going to Quincy tomorrow thought I might mention your progress to Vera.”

Perkins sighs and leans back in her chair. She looks like she needs a smoke. “You mean my lack of progress? The Upperstanders won’t have it. Even if I managed to convince enough Lowerfielders, they’d kibosh the whole thing.”

“Even the Hawthornes?”

Perkins waves a dismissive hand. “They’re practically Lowerfielders to the others, so they just don’t have the influence needed. Plus, Malcolm doesn’t approve of me campaigning to get rid of the thing and he’s half the support I need. I’d love to prove them all wrong on the subject, but I just haven’t quite figured out how.”

There are a few beats of silence that settle on the two of them as they think about whatever it is that they’re talking about. Politics by the sounds of it and Mac can safely say that despite being a mayor himself, he’s never given two shits about politics and is happy enough to be left out of the discussion.

Deacon is the first to break the silence, pushing his empty bowl away and flagging the bar’s waitress down. “Maybe you should propose a trial run instead of permanently lifting the ban. Say with a respected couple? Vera’s a surgeon. A pre-war one at that. I bet with that you’d get Sun on board (if he’s not already); he’d jump at the opportunity to learn new skills, plus Arturo could vouch for the two of them—‘cause you won’t get Vera here without Dexter. With just two you might get more traction with the stuffed shirts up at the Taphouse.”

The waitress appears at their table then and Deacon orders a couple Nuka Colas with some of the local moonshine. Perkins declines another drink.

“I had been considering something similar,” she says after the waitress leaves. “After all, that’s more or less what happened to Nick; seemed like a good strategy to try again. I just didn’t know who could fill that roll, but you think Vera would? She’d prefer to be here rather than Goodneighbour?”

“She loves being a surgeon but doesn’t get to do much of it in Quincy. A larger center would give her access to more surgical clientele. Diamond City is the better bet for that, but they’ll move where its safe, and if it’s not gonna be safe here, then they’ll set up shop in the town with the fellow ghoul as mayor.

Mac stills on the mention of ghouls and a frown steals over his face before he gives himself a little shake. Ghouls are freaky to look at, sure, but they didn’t kill his Lucy. _Ferals_ did, but’s having a hard time shaking that initial reaction lately. Used to be that he could hardly stand to look at a ghoul without flashing back to that day in the tunnels, but it’s better now. As long as he doesn’t think about it. About any of it. Even if her death feels like a weight that’s slowly crushing him. If it weren’t for Duncan, MacCready would’ve rolled over and died already. As it is, he must keep moving. For now. For a little longer. 

Desperate for a distraction, Mac pulls out his smokes and quickly lights one. Deacon leans back in his chair and snatches an ashtray off the _occupied_ table next to them. They make a noise of protest that Deacon apparently ignores and Perkins gives them an apologetic look that quiets them—he remembers the perks of being mayor well. Mac takes a couple long drags and notes Perkins watching him like a hawk. Normally, he doesn’t share smokes since they aren’t cheap or especially easy to come by via scrounging in the Wastes, but what the hell, he’s flush now and can spare one for her. There’s a moment where it looks like she’ll decline the offer, but in the next, she thinks better of it and takes one with a word of thanks.

The waitress returns with their drinks. 

“Thanks, Scarlett,” Deacon says to her and when she’s gone again turns to Perkins and asks, “How’s Piper?”

Perkins shrugs and flips her lighter closed. “Not sure. Haven’t seen much of her lately. She’s working on a big story right now that’s _not_ about the mayor’s office.” Perkins looks like she wants to say something else, but shakes her head and exhales a cloud of smoke.

Deacon doesn’t appear to have noticed it. “No more adventures with Atom worshippers, then?”

Perkins smiles and shakes her head. “No. Last we spoke she was looking into that house over in Beacon Hill. The one that looks like it’s been preserved in time?”

Even Mac’s seen that creepy place. Some of the Gunners have a real interest in it but aren’t willing to risk assaulting it. “It’s got that sentry bot outside, right? Fu—er, really weird that place.”

“What he said,” Deacon concurs, “Hope she isn’t doin’ anything crazy. Those sentry bots are a nightmare. One she should remember.”

“I doubt she’s forgotten. Hell, I haven’t and I wasn’t even there.” Perkins blows out a rough cloud of smoke. “One of these days you guys are going to be the death of me. I’ll worry myself into a heart attack, I swear.”

“Just remember the lantern. If Nick, or Piper, or Art, or anyone here ever gets into trouble, I’ll be there.”

“I haven’t forgotten, but who looks out for you?”

“Me,” MacCready replies a bit suddenly. There’s something heavy hanging over this latest turn in the conversation and he wants to reassure her that Deacon isn’t out there alone, to do something to alleviate that sad look on her face. Shit’s bad enough these days and you can’t promise to return, but you can promise to watch each other’s backs. 

That assurance seems to be enough to lift most of the sadness, as does Deacon’s reassuring hand squeeze, but some of it still lingers in the corners of her eyes. She probably sees a similar sadness on his face. Hell, there’s something similar on most peoples’. That’s the Wastes for you, it etches its hardships into your skin, and from there, they seep into your dreams. 

\- - - - -

MacCready rents a room for the night at the Dugout before last call rolls around. The bartender recognizes him after a moment, reintroducing himself as Vadim Bobrov (Mac knew it started with a V), and asks after Lucy, remembering that Mac hadn’t been solo the first time around. At her mentioning, MacCready’s face crumples, he can feel it and is utterly unable to stop it, or school it into something a little harder or indifferent like a true merc would. A bitter sadness wells up within him, choking off his words even as he opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t, _he just can’t_ say it aloud. He can’t ignore it if he has to hear himself say the words “Lucy is dead” so that everyone knows he failed her.

God, why couldn’t it have been him? Duncan would have been better off with her instead of him.

“Ah. I see,” Vadim says, voice surprisingly soft. “Say no more, friend. Here—” he hands Mac a key. “Settle up with Yefim in the morning.”

MacCready nods his thanks and swallows a couple of times to stave off the emotional breakdown that’s almost upon him, before he turns to catch Deacon’s eye and let him know he was successful. Only, he finds that Deacon is already watching him, mouth settled into a serious line and any thoughts hidden by the reflective shine of his sunglasses. Mac holds up the key as proof and heads back to the rooms (the key’s chain telling he’s got room #3), considering getting a pair of sunglasses to his own thoughts.

After Perkins had excused herself from the table for the night, Deacon suggested that they get moving early the next morning. Quincy is a good day and a half walk from Diamond City, so the earlier they leave, the more progress they can make before the sunsets. MacCready had no problem with that since he knows that sleep is an elusive thing these days. What between nightmares and worrying about how Duncan is doing at that very moment, Mac prefers to be moving than to have to stop and rest, because then all the things he’s been able to ignore in favour of work come crashing back. 

So for what feels like the tenth time that night, Mac rolls over and switches on the room’s bedside lamp to check the time on his pocket watch. This time it tells him that it’s a little after 6 a.m. so MacCready decides that he’s done pretending to sleep. Besides, they should get going soon anyways. 

It doesn’t take him long to get dressed again and strap all his gear back on, though he could stand to do some laundry, but that’ll have to wait for Quincy. The bar is empty when Mac steps from the hall that leads to the Dugout’s rooms, so he leaves his key and 10 caps on the bar where they’ll be easily found before heading out. MacCready pauses in the street for a moment trying to remember if Deacon said he’d come by to get him, or if Mac should drop by the detective agency and let him know he’s ready. Problem is, regular people actually sleep, Mac remembers that much from when he was one of them, so he hesitates to just go over there and pound on the door if Deacon is still sleeping. 

There’s the intoxicating smell of freshly baking bread lingering in the street around him, and MacCready decides to find the source of it in an effort to kill some time. If he arrives with some breakfast then at least it won’t be so obvious that he wasn’t able to sleep. He wanders left down the street, following the scent as best as he can, and passes a few houses as well as a place that is just a little too excited to be a science center. The street opens up into a large, mostly unused area after that, and sports farm fields far off to the left. Sitting mostly by itself on what’s left of the baseball field is a tin shack with steam rising from its chimney and condensing in the cool morning air. 

The relatively new sign hanging above the service counter tells MacCready that this is the place he’s been looking for: Francine’s Bakery.

With food in hand, MacCready heads back toward the market, not sure how to get to the detective agency from where he currently is. At least it burns some more time as he retraces his steps. When he makes it back to Third Street and then down to the sign for the agency, Mac notes further down the street, in the light of the mostly risen sun, more farm fields. So, he didn’t have to wander all the way back around the market to get here. Hmm, whatever. As he bangs on the door of the agency, MacCready hopes that he hasn’t missed Deacon on his little side trip, though he did walk right by the Dugout so if—

The door opens suddenly and Mac stumbles back a step in surprise because a tall, yellow-eyed…robot? with _half his fuckin’ face missing_ is standing in the doorway where Deacon should be. 

“Need somethin’?” the robot asks with some concern, eyes flicking from Mac’s face to the food in his hands to the rifle on his back. 

“Er…Dee—uh I mean, Rhett, here?” MacCready’s pretty sure that Leslie called Deacon ‘Rhett’. 

The robot’s face softens into amusement. “Yeah. He’s here. Come on in.” The door swings open wider and the robot moves back into the office, clearly expecting Mac to follow. He does, hesitantly because what in the Daring. Dashwood. _Hell_ is that thing?! The robot (for lack of a better frigging descriptor, Jesus is that what the Grady meant when she was talking about ‘synths’?) leans around a cinderblock dividing wall and calls, “Hey, kid! You forget about somethin’?”

There’s a muffled reply and Mac shuffles uneasily from foot to foot feeling foolish, then he starts at the sudden, “ _Oh fuck!_ ” that’s practically shouted from somewhere beyond the wall. 

The robot chuckles and moves back into the office space. “He’ll be down in a minute. Take a seat.”

Mac looks around at the available seating, but none of it really works with his rifle hanging crossways across his back, so he leans against the nearest desk instead, wholly uncomfortable with having a robot that looks and talks like that so close. From the other side of the wall, there’s the sound of feet clamouring down a set of stairs and the scrambling of someone trying to get dressed. The robot shakes his head with a grin and goes about tying the undone tie hanging around his neck. 

“What’s your name, kid?” the robot asks midway through his work.

“MacCready.”

“You don’t look like one’a Deacon’s regular companions.”

Mac raises an eyebrow. “If that’s a snide stub about me bein’ a merc, save it tinman. I’ve heard it all.”

The robot tugs the knot of his tie tight and flicks his creepy eyes to Mac’s. “Just an observation. Nothin’ more.”

“Yeah, right. If it was just that, you woulda kept your mouth shut and saved your ‘observation’ for Deacon.”

Annoyingly, the robot smirks. “Fair enough. There was a secondary motive behind it, but it wasn’t a snub. The only way you and I would have a problem would be if he—” the robot gestures to the commotion on the other side of the wall “—died on your watch.”

There’s definitely more than just an implied threat in that. Shit, the robot couldn’t have been more obvious if he flat out said: “I’ll kill you if you get him killed,” and Mac doesn’t like threats. It makes him slide right into defensive asshole mode—which usually works for him since people who throw threats around like to pretend they're the meanest asshole around and it never pays to be seen tucking tail around them. 

“What? Worried about findin’ a new master?”

“Don’t’ tell me you’re volunteerin’, MacCready ‘cause I’ve about had it with cocky redheads,” the robots snaps right back, and Mac snorts.

“So, what are you then?” Mac asks after a couple moments of awkward silence punctuated by scuffling noises beyond the cinderblock wall. “You don’t look like any robot I’ve ever seen.”

“You been livin’ under a rock? I’m—”

“Nick Valentine,” Deacon says, interrupting the robot as he skids out from beyond the divide, his boots in one hand and his gun belt in the other, looking mostly put together given his apparent rush. “It’s on the sign outside. Think I overslept a bit, it’s not late, is it?”

“Quarter to seven, kid.”

“Oh good. Was a bit freaked out there for a moment. Oo! Is that for me?” Deacon swoops over and takes one of the scones from MacCready’s hand before he can do more than nod. “God, nothing better than Francine’s baking. Thanks, Mac.”

“Don’t tell Ellie you said that,” Valentine says as Deacon more or less shoves the whole thing in his mouth while he finishes pulling on his boots and then working on getting his belts fastened. 

MacCready eats a more sedate pace not wanting to risk choking, something Deacon doesn’t seem to fear. Judging from Valentine’s expression he’s about as impressed as Mac is at Deacon’s apparent lack of manners. At least he chews with his mouth closed. 

“There!” Deacon announces when all his gear is in place. “That’s gotta be a record.”

“You moved faster when the F.U.Y.D. tech was in town,” Valentine replies.

“That was an extenuating circumstance, and I was already half-awake then. Nope. Today was faster. I’m sure of it.”

Mac mimes brushing his coat down at Deacon because his vest is covered in crumbs and he loses his smug look when he sees the state of it. That, right there, was worth watching him cram that stupid scone in his mouth. To Mac’s surprise, it’s Valentine that brushes Deacon down. 

“You’re a mess, kid.”

“I usually have better crumb control than this. Actually, I seem to be having a problem with mess in general lately. Killed a Gunner the other day and got covered head to toe in blood.” 

“Oh God, don’t remind me,” Mac mutters under his breath. 

“And just the other week a guy exploded into plasma goo while we were in a fight. The whole front of me was covered. _Covered._ This just isn’t my month, Nick. I’m tellin’ you. Next, it’ll be mirelurk entrails. I’m sure of it.”

Valentine ignores Deacon’s chattering and focuses on the first thing he said with quiet intensity. “What were you doin’ killin’ a Gunner?”

When Deacon grins, Mac understands that his story about the plasma goo (gross) was supposed to be a distraction. He probably hadn’t meant to mention the Gunner bit. “Oh, it was nothin’, Nick. Just a couple scouts. No big deal.”

MacCready rolls his eyes but says nothing. If that’s how Deacon wants to play it…

Valentine is having none of it. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“You take that back! I am a _fantastic_ liar. World class. There’s no one better. You’re just annoyingly perceptive.”

Valentine hums in acknowledgement of that assessment. “So, what was it really?”

“You won’t sleep if I tell you.”

“I already don’t sleep. Spill it.”

“If I tell you, you’ll tell Ellie, and she was complaining of having a heart attack last night worryin’ about us.”

“She can look after herself.”

“How will I live with myself if I give the mayor a heart attack?”

“How will you live with yourself when you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you?”

“It doesn’t?!” Deacon exclaims and clutches his chest. “Oh, Lawd! I done got the vapours!”

Mac lets out a snort of laughter at Deacon’s exaggeration. 

“ _Kid._ ” 

“ _Nick._ ”

Jeez. At this rate, they’ll never get out of this place. “Look, the Gunners set up a base in the old GreeneTech building across the river. Someone hired him to infiltrate and find out their plans,” Mac explains.

Deacon gives him a _‘What the hell?!’_ look before he schools it and shrugs for Valentine. “It’s not as bad as you think. I didn’t even get shot! He did.”

“Infiltrate usually means ‘without being detected’, and here you are tellin’ me only one of you got shot. Jesus, Deacon. A base is a helluva lot more than just a _couple’a_ Gunners.”

“Well, I killed a couple, I think… Grenade might have got one, though. And I wasn’t totally alone. I picked up Mac, and HR and the gang helped with the extraction.”

The line of Valentine’s shoulders goes stiff. “Picked up? He’s a _Gunner?_ ”

“Not anymore. Kinda hard to go back when you kill part of your group while helpin' a ‘hostage’ escape. I hired him to stick with me.” Valentine looks ready to launch into a tirade on the Gunners as an organization (one Mac could probably recite forward and backward by now, no one out here likes the Gunners), but Deacon puts a hand on his arm and says with all his previous joking aside, “Nick, trust me. I know him.”

MacCready raises an eyebrow at that because they’ve known each other collectively for maybe a week and a half now, but that’s definitely not enough to go around and tell people that you ‘know’ someone. But again, if that’s how he wants to play it…

Deacon leans around Valentine’s frame then and says to him, “Hey Mac, could you give us a second? I’ll meet you outside.”

MacCready shrugs. “Sure.” Then he leverages himself off the desk and heads out into the street. Damnit. He didn’t get a chance to talk about the cap stash staying here. 

It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes for Deacon to appear in the alcove of the detective agency, everything apparently settled between him and Valentine. “You ready?” he asks and MacCready gives a hesitant nod. “You still wanna leave your caps here?” 

“…For now, I guess. Don’t have anywhere else to leave ‘em.”

“That’s cool. They won’t be goin’ anywhere. Plus, this has the dual advantage of keepin’ ‘em safe and preventin’ you from spendin’ them all.”

Mac makes a noise of acknowledgement. He doesn’t think he’d spend them all before he made it back to the Capital, but removing the temptation can only be a good thing. However… “Can I get another 500 before we leave?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

They refill their water canteens after making a quick trip to Valentine’s safe, the ‘J’ on the metal box still bothering him for reasons he can’t quite pin down. Before they head for out for Quincy proper, they make a detour to Goodneighbour to sell the bullets and casings they scrounged in Lexington since Diamond City’s market isn’t yet open. The assaultron running the weapon’s shop still creeps MacCready the fuck out and he hangs back while Deacon and the robot flirt with innuendos that double as sexual and murderous.

When he’s sure that Deacon is engrossed in his dealings with the assaultron, Mac heads over to the shop beside it, bracing himself to see the ghoul owner. She’s been good to him and MacCready doesn’t want her to know that the sight of her brings up painful memories.

“Hey, Daisy,” he greets sliding up to the counter. “You strike it rich, yet?”

She snorts. “With lookie-loos like you comin’ into my shop all day, whaddya think? At least you’re one of the better lookin’ ones.”

“I’m flattered. Truly.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, what’re you doing in town? Thought you signed up with the Gunners.”

Mac shrugs. “I did. Then I got a better deal.”

“What idiot decided to pay you, MacCready?”

“Hey! I’m worth every single over-priced cap, and you know it.” Her black eyes roll, but her lips draw up in a smile. “Said idiot is over talkin’ with the assaultron next door.”

“They better be careful; you might end up outta a job.”

MacCready waves a dismissive hand. “Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it. New boss has a way with robots it seems. Get’s special consideration from that synth? Valentine up in Diamond City.”

Daisy’s eyes go wide. “Oh. _Him._ Mac, sweetie, I know you can look after yourself, but be careful. Not only is he trouble, but a few people ‘round here have a soft spot for him. If you don’t bring him back… Well, let’s just say you might be better off workin’ for someone else.”

MacCready frowns. More threats? Jeez, who the hell is this guy? “Whaddya mean ‘trouble’?”

“Look, it’s not something you go blabbin’ on the streets, ya hear me? Just watch your back. Now, you gonna buy somethin’ or what?”

“You can’t leave me hangin’ like that, Daisy,” Mac says, pitching his voice low and suddenly feeling like someone is watching him. “This guy gonna shoot me while I’m sleepin’ or something?”

“Not unless you give him cause, but that’s about the half of it for most people. No, Mac. It’s who might wanna kill _him_ that’s the trouble.” She gives him a meaningful look, one that seems to speak of enemies tougher than even Gunners. “You’ve really stepped in it.”

Mac lets out an annoyed sigh. “ _Great…_ I knew those caps were too good to be true.”

“Spend ‘em while you can, sweetie. Preferably here.”

He pulls out some money for dried rations. “If this is just a ploy to make a sale, Daisy, I swear…”

“Never.” She scuttles the caps away in a flash and deposits some wrapped brahmin jerky in his hands. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, could you send these to the Capital for me?” MacCready puts the leather pouch with the untouched caps on the counter. 

“Of course.” Daisy tucks the caps away and squeezes his arm. “Got a caravan leaving at the end of the week. They’ll be there by the end of the month.”

“Thanks.”

“‘Course. And take care, hmm?”

MacCready tucks the jerky into his bag. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get shot, bring the idiot back in one piece. Got it.” He turns and exits the shop with one last wave to Daisy and then jumps slightly in surprise when he notes Deacon leaning against the brick wall to the right of the shop’s door.

“Got you a present,” Deacon says and deposits a handful of .50 calibre rounds in MacCready’s hand. “She only had a dozen. Figures that you and me would have some of the rarest and most expensive ammo ‘round these parts.”

“Good thing I’m a helluva shot, then.” Mac tucks the rounds into his pocket. When he gets a chance later he’ll load them into his bandolier. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You ready?”

MacCready nods and follows Deacon out of town with a slight frown marring his face. There’s no way he didn’t hear the end of Mac’s conversation with Daisy, so why is he pretending like he didn’t? Ugh. He’s not surprised people want to kill Deacon. Annoying shit that he is.

\- - - - -

It takes them a few hours to get fully out of the ruins of Boston, during which Deacon’s whistling is practically nonexistent. Good thing too, since they ran into some raiders hanging around the metro station at the edge of the city and it would’ve given away their position. However, once they get onto the main beat toward Quincy, the whistling starts. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like the songs—strange choice that they are, they help keep their footsteps in time—it’s just that _no one_ sings or whistles or plays those songs anymore. MacCready hasn’t heard them anywhere since he was a kid, they don’t even play in the Capital anymore. And why those songs? Especially when he heard Deacon whistling along to The Ink Spots when they were in Diamond City. Though, _I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire_ is just a little too on the nose these days. _Maybe_ is probably a better choice.

“So, you and Valentine…?” MacCready asks sometime in the afternoon when he’s heard enough of Deacon’s preferred song choices.

Deacon turns slightly to look at Mac, tune dying on his lips. “That’s only half a sentence, Mac.”

“Pretty sure the rest was implied.”

“Humour me.”

Mac sighs roughly. “Forget it.”

Deacon starts whistling again, only this time, to his annoyance, it’s a Nat ‘King’ Cole song instead of his usual band numbers. Mac is sure that’s the tune of _Almost Like Being in Love,_ so he knows Deacon is messing with him.

“You got a problem with Nick?” Deacon asks after he’s done sailing through Cole’s tune.

MacCready shrugs. “Don’t know,” he answers honestly. “He makes me uncomfortable. Robots shouldn’t be so…human. It’s like every Old-World horror story about robots and artificial intelligence all rolled into one.” He shudders. “I don’t like it.”

Deacon chuckles sympathetically. “Yeah, I get that, but they’re just like us. Synths, A.I.’s, they’re all just as good and as terrible as us. Nick’s one’a the goods ones.”

“‘Cept I can’t crush a man with one hand or turn a bunch of sentry bots against a town.”

“If you were in a suit of power armour you could do the former, and if you had access to a military bunker with a working mainframe you could theoretically do the later. Only you wouldn’t, right?”

“Well, duh.”

Deacon’s sunglasses slide down a fraction as he shoots MacCready a _‘You just made my point,’_ look.

Mac huffs. He sees the point but is still uncomfortable about the whole thing. That kind of technology seems incredibly dangerous and though he thinks the Brotherhood are bunch of pushy pricks with too much power armour and dogma, he agrees with the idea that there are technologies out there that no one should have access to. 

“Don’t expect to change your mind with one conversation, Mac. Just remember it when you meet another synth.”

“Yeah, well…just tell me they don’t all look like Valentine.”

Deacon lets out a bark of laughter. “No. They don’t.”

They make camp in the ruins of an old park as the sun sets out of the sky. It’s about fours from Quincy and too far to finish the walk in the dark. Even on a road as well travelled as this one. When he was still with the Gunners, it would’ve been a big deal, and even though he doesn’t expect to meet any of those mercs, it’s better to keep a low profile.

Near the end of the day, they bumped into a caravan travelling south as well. They decided to stay behind it since it’s guards looked particularly trigger happy, and it slowed their travel somewhat. As they made camp, they had to interact momentarily with the caravanner running the thing to mention that they’ll be in the other mostly intact cabin and please don’t shoot us and we won’t shoot you. Deacon ran that conversation and actually said those damn words. As if that would endear them to the guards. Fuck.

MacCready considers them lucky when the caravan guards don’t pre-emptively try to shoot them in the night. 

The next day, in the late morning, they arrive in Quincy, having left the park before the caravan. Hungry, thirsty, and sore from sleeping on the hardwood floor of the cabin, Mac suggests food before they do anything else. Deacon agrees easily and takes them to the town’s diner where he pesters Mac to get the mirelurk steak until he gives in with roll of his eyes. 

Admittedly, it’s a good choice.

“So, what’re we doin’ here?” MacCready asks, plate half finished.

“Initially? Recon, I think. Then…we’ll see.” Deacon sort of frowns for a brief moment and then shakes it off. 

“Recon of what?”

“Fort Independence.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Not surprised.”

He can’t get anything else out of Deacon on the subject and huffs in irritation at Deacon’s ability to slide around it. As they leave the diner, Mac’s leg giving a twinge of protest that has him pausing to try to shake it out, Deacon claps him on the shoulder and asks,

“How do you feel about the Minutemen?”

The groan MacCready responds with has very little do with the pain in his leg.

“Don’t worry,” Deacon replies with amusement in his voice as he heads out into the street. “I won’t tell them you were a Gunner.”

Mac follows him with an annoyed sigh and tells himself that he’ll never again accept a contract based solely on his need for caps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this being so off schedule! Oh man, that Dishonoured fic really consumed my life there for a while (20K words and counting), then I was at my mom’s house for a week and half helping to get her garden going (and that’s a full-time job let me tell you), and _then_ I stupidly left my iPad at the hospital when I was in the Nuclear Medicine department with my mom and didn’t have it for almost a week while I was out of the city. It had a couple thousand words of this story on it and no internet connection to get at it. I did get it back, thankfully! A really nice nurse found it and held on to it for me. ANYWAYS…hope you liked a bit of Mic-Mac as a change of pace. 
> 
> We're so close to the end now folks. This time I promise. lol


	29. Minutemen, Power Amour, and Mirelurks, Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,_   
>  _Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky_   
>  _Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull_   
>  _Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull._
> 
> _-All’s Well that Ends Well (1.1.209)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief summary of the previous chapter since it's been so damn long: 
> 
> MacCready and Deacon escape the clutches of the Gunners thanks to fire support from Ticon. MacCready convalesces at Ticon and discovers nothing of what goes on there. Once he's on his feet again, he and Deacon clear out the Coverga plant in Lexington before heading south to Quincy, with a layover in Diamond City. Once in Quincy, Deacon reveals they're helping the Minutemen with a problem they have at Fort Independence/the Castle.

The first thing that Deacon hears anytime he approaches the old three-story apartment complex that houses this Minutemen branch (though, he honestly can’t name where the others are despite Garvey telling him that these few aren’t all that’s left), is the barking of a dog. Before Deacon even has a chance to greet the guard on duty outside the door, he’s almost bowled over by an eighty-pound German Shepard leaping toward him in excitement. Somehow, he manages to keep his feet and Deacon kneels to better pet the dog.

“Hell of a welcome,” MacCready says, something wistful in his voice. Deacon wonders if the kids, now adults, from Little Lamplight still have dogs. 

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Deacon says as he scratches behind the shepard's ears. “But he’s about the only one around here happy to see me. Aren’t you Dogmeat? Good boy,” he coos to the dog and he rolls over to let Deacon rub his belly. 

“Can’t imagine why,” Mac replies, voice dripping with sarcasm and Deacon laughs.

“Right?” Deacon ruffles Dogmeat’s ear and then stands. “Come on boy, let’s go talk to the Captain.” The dog springs back to his feet and gives a quick bark of confirmation before leading them into the building. Deacon nods at the guard on duty; MacCready scowls. He’s not much for hiding his feelings, is he? Then again, he never was. 

Dogmeat’s approval of Deacon, and by extension MacCready, gives them nearly free reign to wander through the building. Being more perceptive than his human companions, it doesn’t matter to Dogmeat how often Deacon changes his face, he always recognizes him. (What it is about Deacon that strikes the dog as trustworthy is beyond him, however.) Dogmeat leads them up stairs to the second level, down a hall, and then into a gutted apartment floor. Much like Vera’s clinic has taken up several rooms, this main area of the barracks is several apartments in one. 

This level of the building is dedicated to managing what’s left of the Minutemen and this room, where Dogmeat has lead them, is what Deacon considers the War Room. Though, it’s probably more accurately described as the Minor Skirmishes Room. There’s a large table in the center with various papers scattered over it, maps of the Commonwealth, both current and pre-war, are tacked up on the walls, there are a few couches pushed against the walls in a couple spots, and on the sparse counters of the room, there are a few ammo boxes and weapons sitting around. The main armoury is on the first floor and heavily locked and guarded, but these munitions are out for convenience.

Captain Garvey and Colonel Hollis are standing around the table, their conversation coming to a halt when Deacon and MacCready enter the room. Dogmeat crosses the space and immediately sits at Garvey’s feet, looking back at Deacon and MacCready as if to say, “Here he is.” Garvey pats Dogmeat’s head in a distracted manner as he peers at the new comers. 

Colonel Hollis gives them a concerned look as he asks, “Is there something you need?”

“Actually, I’m here to help you,” Deacon says as he walks across the room. 

“We don’t hire mercenaries,” Hollis replies, tone rote and already dismissing them. Deacon figures a fair few people roll through here looking for work but not willing to join. 

“Not actually mercs. Well, okay, my pal here is—” Deacon tosses his thumb back at MacCready, “—but I’m payin’ him so you don’t have to. And we’re not lookin’ to join,” Deacon adds before Hollis has the chance to start on his recruitment spiel. “I’m here to talk to you about The Castle.”

Garvey is immediately interested, but Hollis remains skeptical. “We’re not interested in paying for salvage, and anything you might have found there is the property of the Minutemen.”

“Well, like the Old World used to say, ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law’, so since you’re not there you can’t technically claim anythin’. Especially these days.”

Hollis frowns. “Then, spit it out, son. I’m losing my patience with this game.”

“You’re the one stoppin’ him from talkin’ for more than two sentences at a time. And if you haven’t noticed, he likes to talk, so, shut up and let him finish,” MacCready says, his impatience with the situation far more apparent than the Colonel’s.

“Watch your mouth, merc,” Garvey says, straightening and Dogmeat is immediately on alert.

“Not my problem you Minutemen like to pontificate,” MacCready replies, and Deacon has to clamp down on a laugh.

“Gentlemen, please don’t fight. It’s unbecoming,” Deacon says, a smile curling the edges of his mouth. “I probably should’ve started with this: I’m Deacon, and this is MacCready—he’s a prickly bastard, so don’t rile him up too much.” 

Mac huffs.

“You ass,” Garvey replies with a laugh and relaxes again and Dogmeat lays down on the floor now that he’s at ease again. 

Hollis snorts. “Should’ve known. Who else talks this much? Well, Deacon what is it about The Castle you want to discuss?”

“First and foremost, a recon team. After that, recovery.”

Garvey lights up and nods his head like he’s ready to agree to anything Deacon might say about The Castle, but Hollis just shakes his head with a frown.

“It’s a lost cause. Even if it wasn’t, there’s too few of us now.”

“You’ve forgotten your roots. The Minutemen were never an army; you’re skirmishers. Fight smart, not hard. Besides, think of the recruitment opportunities if you manage to get The Castel back.”

“It’s easy for an outsider to say such things.”

“You say that like you don’t know what I do. There’s no such thing as being ‘outsider’ for me,” Deacon replies, raising an eyebrow above the rim of his sunglasses. “And if we find that recovery is possible after recon, you won’t be on your own.”

Hollis and Garvey give MacCready a look, no doubt wondering if he’s a part of the Railroad as well.

“Obviously, me and my _merc_ pal,” Deacon starts, stressing MacCready’s position, hoping that they understand that Mac isn’t in on the secret, “will help, but I can also round up a few other friends to give you a hand.”

Deacon can feel MacCready frowning at his back, but he keeps his focus on the Captain and Colonel. When Hollis speaks again after a moment or two of consideration, he’s still frowning at Deacon.

“I can’t very well keep you away, but I still don’t think it’s worth your time.”

“And mine, Sir?” Garvey asks, a hint of excitement in his tone. 

Hollis looks at him and then sighs. “Very well, Captain. Accompany them if you wish and take two others, but recon _only_. We can’t afford to leave Quincy defenceless. But who knows, you might even find the armoury.”

 _Yeah,_ Deacon thinks, _if we aren’t killed by the mirelurk queen first._

Garvey suggests meeting outside town, under the old overpass to the north tomorrow morning, so free for the rest of the afternoon, Deacon and MacCready head down to Quincy’s market to grab some supplies for the trip, after which they’ll book a room with Vera’s beau for a few nights. Deacon doesn’t expect to be gone for longer than the day tomorrow since he isn’t about to start a fight with any monster on this trip to the Castle. After that, it’s up to the Minutemen as to how long they stay in Quincy. If they decide to live and let live, Deacon will drag Mac up to the north and check out some dead drops for missions. 

“So, this Castle place is Fort Independence?” MacCready asks as they purchase dry rations from Fenton’s Food Stuffs. 

“Yep.”

“And whadda you care if they get it back or not?”

“Because there’s a Brotherhood recon team in the north,” Deacon replies as they move away, knowing MacCready dislikes the Brotherhood almost as much as he does and figuring he’ll be more motivated to help if it means screwing with the Brotherhood of Steel.

“Those _mother—_ ugh. Can’t they just be friggin’ happy with the Capital?”

“Nope. As long as there’s technology to steal—oh sorry, ‘protect’, they won’t be satisfied.”

MacCready gives him questioning look, a frown forming on his face. “Thought you only visited the Capital once. What’s your beef?”

“Long and storied, but that’s unimportant. Not about to let this be another wasteland for them to plunder.” 

MacCready makes a noise of acknowledgement, and though he clearly isn’t satisfied with that evasion, he lets it drop for now. “Still, don’t see how those 20-some soldiers are gonna stop the Brotherhood from taking everything they want. They’ll roll over those goodie-two-shoes with their power armour and vertibirds in twenty minutes. Tops.”

“Which why they gotta go from 20 to 100 in five months. Those numbers will be able to handle gorilla operations and destabilize what ever kind of foothold the Brotherhood manages when it arrives in force,” Deacon replies as they start toward the inn. MacCready looks doubtful. 

“That’ll just get 100 people killed instead of 20.”

“The alternative is war and no Minuteman will survive that.”

“Yeah…well, they’d probably think it glorious or some shi—thing.”

It’s Deacon’s turn to frown at that assessment of The Minutemen, of Garvey, and Davis, and all the sallow faced soldiers that stood in the ruins of Jamaica Plains after destroying The Deathclaws. 

“No. They wouldn’t.” 

The tone of Deacon’s voice makes Mac look away, not quite ashamed or sorry, but understanding, perhaps, that he’d crossed a line. 

“In any case,” Deacon continues, lightening the atmosphere, “the opportunity to put a few Brotherhood assholes in their place should be fun.”

MacCready’s lips curve into a smirk at that. “Can’t wait.”

\- - - - -

There isn’t much in that surprises Deacon these days. He almost feels like saying something along the lines of “Seen it all, sweetheart,” though that sounds entirely too much like Nick and while he’s mad for the man, he doesn’t want to start copying his cadence. (His Boston accent is just a little too noir for Deacon to pull off in anything other than lighthearted mockery.) However, he will admit to being surprised last year when he found out that after Garrett Asif (formerly and infamously, Bloody Garrett), had served his prison sentence in the Minutemen’s work camp outside of town, he had asked and been _accepted_ to join The Minutemen. 

Deacon doesn’t know if this acceptance was Garvey’s handiwork or the Minutemen’s general crunch for personnel. Maybe a bit of both. In any case, he wasn’t about to begrudge the man a second chance if he was genuine about wanting it. Forgive but don’t forget is how Deacon tries to approach life. How successful he’s been, is another matter entirely.

Apparently, Garrett thinks in much the same lines toward him as the first thing he says to Deacon when they meet up with Captain Garvey, Dogmeat, and a Sergeant that Deacon can’t recall the name of, is, 

“A new face. What a surprise.”

“This old thing?” Deacon says in a false alto. “Darling, I just threw it on this morning.”

Garvey snorts, a smirk forming on his lips while the Sergeant is dour at his side. MacCready rolls his eyes.

“It certainly looks like it,” Garrett returns and that gets a laugh from MacCready. 

“Well, mine was manufactured, but what’s your excuse?”

Garrett throws up his hands in defeat, his blue armband, void of any white bars, catching the edge of the sunlight that’s creeping under the overpass. “Don’t want to insult my mother by trying to explain it.”

“I’m sure that’s the least of her worries,” Deacon replies, his grin hardening a little around the edges. 

He should just let bygones be bygones (especially when Garvey frowns at him and the dour Sergeant smirks), considering the things _he’s_ done in his life, but that’s easier said than done. 

Deacon hooks his hands into his gun belt as he says, “We should get going before moss starts grownin’ at our feet.”

Garvey agrees and they set a quick pace for Fort Independence. As they head out on the road, Garrett sweeps by him and says in a low voice, “I wonder how much worry you cause your mother, hmm?”

Deacon effects an easy air of nonchalance as he shrugs and doesn’t offer a more concrete answer than that. To be honest, what his mother thought of him didn’t ever factor much into his life; he didn’t know her and thus couldn’t even begin to imagine what she might have thought of him. His father, on the other hand,…well, Deacon doesn’t imagine James considers much of what he’s done since disarming the bomb in Megaton to be something worth boasting about to other ghosts. 

He can almost hear his dad’s scornful tone now, _“Can’t you just, for **one** second, consider someone other than yourself?”_ He’d said that to Deacon after yet another fight with Butch, and even now, the words sting. James would probably approve of what Butch was doing now in The Pitt, far more than he would of his son.

His dark thoughts must have made a brief appearance on his face (damn Nick for making him all soft) because MacCready says in an attempt to mollify him, “Self-righteous pricks.”

“Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Mac just snorts.

Garrett appears to have let things lie in the past between him and Deacon, even if he can’t resist a few needling remarks here and there, and Deacon honestly doesn’t mind it. It’s nice to sharpen his wit against someone who’s responses are just as quick as his. That way, next time he’s in Diamond City, he might just one-up Nick for good. 

MacCready, for his part, is clearly annoyed at being dragged around the Commonwealth to help The Minutemen, but Garrett gets him talking about his rifle somewhere around the ruins of Jamaica Plains (perhaps in a bid to ignore the ghosts lingering there) and Mac seems to warm marginally to at least one of their number. 

With the balmy sun shining on them, the trek up to this area could almost be considered pleasant if it wasn't for the tension between Garvey and his Sergeant, which leads to tension between Dogmeat and the Sergeant because the dog would gladly take a bullet for Garvey. Or in this case, rip a man’s arm off for the Captain. Absently, Deacon pats Dogmeat’s head. _Good boy,_ he thinks. 

Sergeant Clint Carson comes off as being not only pissed off about having to be on this mission but also appears to take personal offense at Garvey directing him around. (Uh..what exactly did he expect?) He constantly stresses Garvey’s rank of ‘Captain’ as if he doesn’t believe Garvey deserves it, or that he believes it should be his. Which is ridiculous considering Garvey is the epitome of Minutemen morals and goodness. Garvey’s face should be on all the promotional material.

We want YOU to join The Minutemen.

Plus, the Captain is infinitely better looking than old Uncle Sam—all tall, dark, and wholesomely handsome.

They arrive in the old industrial area around Fort Independence sometime around one (Mac checks his pocket watch and shares the face when Deacon leans over his shoulder, curious) and break for lunch so that MacCready, Garrett, and Carson can have a smoke. As they pull out rations, Deacon takes a seat on the concrete stairs of the old Gwinnett Brewery next to Garvey and Dogmeat. 

“How’s Davis?” he asks, before ripping a chunk of brahmin jerky off with his teeth. Dogmeat eyes the meat with great interest. 

Garvey gives him a sidelong glance and then looks out into the ruined parking lot where Carson is wandering through the cars, idly looking for anything of worth. “Out on a message run to the north-west. There’s an old National Guard outpost over there that’s being used as a base for those of us not in Quincy.”

Well, that explains her not being here. Deacon was pretty sure Davis was all but glued to Garvey’s side. The Captain and his Lieutenant, an unflappable team.

“She won’t be pleased to have missed this,” Garvey adds.

Deacon hums in agreement. “The Sergeant isn’t exactly her replacement, is he?”

Garvey frowns and then discreetly looks behind him, but Garrett is well distracted by MacCready’s rather wild tale about killing half-a-dozen raiders in a row when he was a kid. If Deacon hadn’t actually seen the corpses lying in front of the gates to Little Lamplight _he_ certainly wouldn’t believe it and he’s not sure Garrett will either. 

“No. He’s not,” Garvey finally says and the tone of his voice makes Dogmeat take his eyes off Deacon’s food for a moment to check on his master.

When the Captain doesn’t continue, Deacon says, “He gonna cause problems?”

Garvey sighs. “Probably.”

“Well, let me know if we need to feed his body to the mirelurks or something.”

“Always willing to lend a hand, huh?” Garvey asks with a slight smirk. 

“You know it, pal.”

They move on shortly after that, carefully picking their way through the debris littered streets. Soon enough, the broken concrete gives way to grass and dirt, and they step out of the tight alleyways and into a field of wild scrub grass just starting to go green with the warmer temperatures of spring. There’s the bombed-out ruins of a diner ahead of them, and rising beyond that are the broken the walls of the Castle, neé Fort Independence. Garvey pauses for a moment, taking the fort in, looking for all the world like he’s staring at the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on and Deacon can’t help the smirk at that curls in the corner of his mouth at the sight. He doesn’t say anything about Garvey’s fixation, however. After all, he goes gaga over the sight of RobCo technology. Who’s he to judge?

“Jesus, what a piece of shit,” Carson says with a sneer.

Garvey’s jaw tightens at the insult and even Garrett frowns at Clint’s estimation of the place. MacCready, on the other hand, makes a low noise of agreement and Deacon jabs him with an elbow, giving him a silent look to keep his mouth shut. If he wants to rag on the state of The Castle out of Garvey’s hearing, fine (it is a mess, there’s no denying it, and even though Deacon was prepared for it, he’s reconsidering whether he should bother helping them take it back. JH had no idea the state of the place when he suggested it would be a good place for The Minutemen to rebuild and for some reason Deacon didn’t think to argue that angle. Maybe he figured the fact that a mirelurk queen is nesting here was a better deterrent than it being a ruin), but for now he needs to keep his opinions to himself. 

“Let’s move up to that old diner. Maybe we can get a better idea of what to expect from there,” Garvey says, ignoring the Sergeant’s estimation of his beloved Castle.

They follow the Captain’s lead, observing the Castle as they move, wary of anything that might catch sight of them. Thankfully, the wind is cooperating, so they might get close enough to actually scope out the place without getting scented. Garvey’s lead is short-lived, however, and as they check out the wall of the fort from the gaping hole in the diner’s east wall, Garvey turns to him and asks, 

“How should we approach?”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “You’re the soldier, not me.”

“And you strolled into HQ and all but demand a recon team to accompany you here,” Garvey replies, matching Deacon’s expression. “So, clearly you have an idea of what to do because we wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

If only it was a _single_ idea. JH’s words seemed to have pushed him closer to the Lone Wanderer than he realized. 

“Alright. You wanna take orders from me, Captain? I can work with that, but be careful. You might start givin’ me ideas.” Deacon says the words with a light sort of flippancy that’s meant to be a joke, but Garvey gives him a solemn nod that suggests he wouldn’t mind that at all. 

Damn JH for being right.

“Oh great,” Carson laments with an eye roll. “Now I gotta take orders from merc drifter? Bad enough I’m here with Captain Goody-Two-Shoes and the former prisoner.”

“ _Silence,_ ” Garvey barks, clearly at the end of his patience and Dogmeat assumes an aggressive stance. “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t directly related to the mission, Sergeant, I’ll bust your ass down to Corporal. And we both know how long it took you to get the rank of Sergeant with your attitude. You’ll be an old man before you ever make Lieutenant.”

Carson fumes at that dressing down and looks like he wants to lash out, but wisely holds his tongue; which is what he should’ve done in the first place. Deacon isn’t sure he’s ever seen anger or a temper from Garvey and if Carson’s attitude is enough to push the ever calm and even-keeled Garvey into anger, Deacon sure as hell doesn’t want the Sergeant at his back. 

“Not a merc,” Deacon tells Carson with a cold look. “Or a drifter. I’ve far too great an agenda to be content with that.”

“Don’t you just,” Garrett murmurs. 

Deacon leads them from the half-collapsed diner after giving Garrett a brief look. The unfortunate thing about being downwind from The Castle is that they have content with the stench of rotting fish and meat from the mirelurks nesting there. It’s strong enough to make Deacon gag and he pulls up the edge of his undershirt over his nose to try and block out the smell. The group follows him in a V-shape, MacCready and Garrett watching Carson as they move forward. 

There’s a husk of a guard post near the crumbling walls and Deacon silently directs the group to fan out around it before stopping and considering the area ahead. They can see the tops of the shells of skittering mirelurks and beside him, Garvey groans quietly. 

“I hate mirelurks,” he murmurs and Dogmeat pushes his face under Garvey’s arm in solidarity and comfort.

“Then you are not gonna like what else is hanging around here,” Deacon replies quietly and gestures to the left side of the destroyed wall for the Minutemen to head that way while he and MacCready head for the right. 

They quickly dash across the sloped ground and flatten themselves along the ancient brickwork. He can feel the cool stone on through his dress shirt on the backs of his arms as he slides up to the edge of the crumbling wall and looks out into the courtyard. Deacon can’t see much beyond the mud-encrusted radio communications tower, mounds of detritus from the mirelurks, and a few mirelurks themselves, but when he looks across the expanse of the broken wall to where Garvey and his group are huddled, he catches the widening look of horror on their faces and knows that _they’ve_ spotted the queen. Then, a rumbling shakes the ground and the Minutemen scramble backward along the wall to stay out of sight.

“What the he-ck? MacCready whispers next to him and Deacon grabs his arm, pulling him back as well. 

“There’s a queen here,” Deacon tells him in a rushed hush. 

MacCready stills for a moment, surprised, then he swears and uses the grip Deacon has on his arm to pull them both further away from the wall. Deacon signals a regrouping with a quick twirl of his fingers and they move low, and quick across the expanse of scrub grass back to the guard post, and after making sure the Minutemen make it in one piece, they all retreat back to the diner.

The moment they’re inside, MacCready explodes.

“Are you shittin’ me right now with this? There’s a _fuckin’_ queen in there and you want to try and take that place back?”

Garvey looks like he’s lost a couple of shades of colour and Deacon wonders if his expressed hate of mirelurks wasn’t just a regular expression of dislike, but something deep and more visceral. After all, no one likes mirelurks. They’re miserable creatures that are practically impossible to make taste good—diner in Quincy excepted.

“They weren’t kidding about a monster driving us out of there,” the Captain croaks. “I thought…” he trails off and swallows, trying to find his footing again. Dogmeat presses his body into the side of Garvey’s leg.

“The one time when we coulda used a little of that Minutemen brand of bullshit,” Carson mutters. “Well, fuck it. It’s not worth the trouble anyways.”

Deacon shrugs at that comment, non-committal. It’s ultimately up to the Colonel and whatever other high-ranking members are left as to whether they decide to make the effort of getting The Castle back. It’s not beyond help in Deacon opinion, but it’s definingly not going to be a cake walk, especially not with the Minutemen’s current numbers. 

“You knew, didn’t you,” Garrett says, pinning Deacon with a look. “You already knew there was a queen here.”

Garvey’s head snaps to him at that and MacCready looks at him like he’s fucking insane for visiting this place not once, but _twice._

“What?” Garvey asks, surprised at the same moment Mac snaps, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I might’ve already been here once out of curiosity,” Deacon hedges. He doesn’t want them reading too much into why he withheld that information. 

“Then why the hell drag us out here?” the Sergeant snaps.

Deacon ignores him and looks to Garvey. “You always talk about this place and the glory of the Minutemen Past. How could I resist a peek?”

“You could’ve just told Colonel Hollis what you knew,” Garvey replies, a look that’s not quite a frown crossing his face.

“And he would’ve just sent you out here anyways to confirm.”

“True enough.” Despite that agreement, Garvey’s still giving him a strange look.

“And on that note, we should get back to Quincy. You, so you can talk with Hollis, and us so we can eat some more mirelurk steak,” Deacon says with a grin starts out of the diner, MacCready following in his wake, scowling. After a moment, he can hear Garvey’s measured footsteps follow, then Garrett’s and Carson’s too.

The hike back is much quieter than the one on the way down. The silence isn’t awkward or heavy, but there is plenty enough information to process without the added distraction of conversation. They say what they need to in terms of enemy spotting and shot calling, but beyond that they’re all lost in their own worlds, thoughts revolving around the Castle. 

It’s sometime around supper (if Deacon’s rumbling stomach is any indication) when they arrive back in Quincy. The Minutemen break from them at the gate, with Garvey telling them to come by in the morning to talk about what they found. The look on MacCready’s face as they turn and head deeper into town makes it clear what he thinks about this whole situation. Honestly, Deacon doesn’t really blame him. A mirelurk queen isn’t going to be easy to evict.

They take their seats at the same table as they did for breakfast and Deacon orders the same thing: mirelurk steak with salsa. MacCready goes for brahmin stew instead and they both order beer. Somehow, Mac manages to wait until after they have their meals in front of them to say,

“I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

“Uh, 3,500 caps for six months? The hell you don’t,” Deacon replies with a smirk. If Mac has come down from his position of ‘no way in hell,’ to grumbling about not getting paid, he’s clearly decided to help Deacon help The Minutemen, even if it’s against his better judgement. Probably considered all the Brotherhood soldiers he’ll get to terrorize and decided it was worth the effort. “You didn’t think this’d be easy? After the trouble we got into last time?”

“Guess I figured in the intervening three years you’d’ve gotten less reckless, not more.”

“Well, this time I’m waiting to make a plan before rushing headlong in. That’s progress, right?”

MacCready snorts and digs into his stew. 

“Admit it, you’d be dreadfully bored if all we did for these next six months was wander from one settlement or safe place to another.”

“Big difference between being bored and being dead.”

“Ye of little faith.”

Mac rolls his eyes. “There had better be Brotherhood to mess up at the end of this shitshow.”

“Don’t worry,” Deacon replies in all seriousness, “that’s one thing I _can_ promise.”

In the morning, Deacon wakes to an annoying shaft of light falling across the small cot he claimed as his own the first night they crashed in the room. MacCready is working with the curtains drawn aside at a small table, cleaning his rifle as Deacon didn’t give him much of a chance to do anything remotely responsible last night, preferring instead to play cards. He half expected Mac to start needling him for answers about the knowledge revealed at GreeneTech, but it appears MacCready likes to keep his secrets to himself as much as Deacon does. 

With a groan, Deacon rolls over in bed and draws the covers over his head. 

“It’s just about eight,” MacCready tells him. “Those Minutemen probably keep early hours.”

“Maybe I don’t,” he grumbles in return.

“No Valentine to scold you out of bed this time, eh?”

“Mac? Piss off.”

MacCready laughs at that continues in his work, leaving Deacon to float along in a semi-conscious state for a while until he sighs and tells himself that he’d better get up. It doesn’t take long for him to dress. Then, Deacon checks the state of his facial hair in the moderately cracked mirror and hums and haws for a moment over whether to bother shaving. Ultimately, he decides to break out his straight razor since it’s been a few days and he isn’t looking to grow a beard.

By the time he’s wiping face down, MacCready is impatiently waiting for him to be finished. He’s long put his rifle back together and had all his gear on, ready to head out if only Deacon would finish puttering around. He pulls on his kit, securing everything into place and Mac lets out an impatient sound as he bounces his leg from where he’s sitting.

When Deacon’s finally ready to head out, Mac breezes by him on his way out the door. Deacon smiles to himself and locks the door behind them before proclaiming to be starving. MacCready grumbles something like, “Not that anyone could tell with how slow you were moving.” 

With MacCready’s impatience at the forefront of his mind, Deacon foregoes breakfast at the diner, even though their French toast special sounds _amazing,_ and instead leads them to Fenton’s for a bunwich and a cup of coffee before heading to the Minutemen outpost. Dogmeat greets them as they make it to the door, already waiting for them to arrive if his position next to the guard is any indication. Thankfully, he doesn’t accost Deacon this time and is happy enough to get a few friendly pats on his head as Deacon goes by and a more thorough petting from MacCready that suggests the previous day’s trip has put them in each other’s good graces. 

Upstairs, they find Garvey and Colonel Hollis much they way they did the day before, but this time the room is filled with the other members of the Minutemen, Garrett, and Sergeant Carson included, as they discuss what was discovered at the Castle. As Deacon and MacCready step into the room, Hollis’ gaze flicks toward them and Garvey’s follows. Suddenly a dozen or so pairs of eyes fall on them. Deacon waves.

As they approach the table, Hollis turns to Garvey and says, “I suppose you figure he has some grand plan for dealing with a mirelurk queen?”

“Not especially, but might have something to add to ours.”

“This doesn’t qualify as a plan, Preston. It’s a Goddamn suicide mission.”

“Well, let’s start with the basics and see if we can’t reclassify into just a bad idea, yeah?” Deacon says as he slides up to the table. 

Hollis throws up his hands in exasperation and then gestures for Garvey to take the floor. 

“So, the biggest problem we’re facing right now is how to get through the shell on the queen. Regular mirelurks are practically immune to laser fire, and their shells will stop a single bullet,” Garvey begins, “The second is that queens apparently shoot a kind of acid which is capable of melting armour.” The Captain looks to a young man whose blue armband doesn’t have a white stripe, just like Garrett’s. “Corporal.”

“My aunt hunted one once with a team. They survived. _Barely._ She has some really horrible scars where the acid burnt her flesh.”

The plasma scar stretched along Deacon’s hip itches in sympathy as he says, “Okay, so first we need something capable of piercing the shell, then something big enough to kill the queen after the first task has succeeded, and we have to manage this without dying a horrible death due to being melted. Any other hurdles?”

“Isn’t that enough?” MacCready huffs.

“In the settlement I grew up in,” starts a woman near the back, “we suffered from a lot of 'lurk attacks. Listening to the story of the queen, I wonder if there wasn’t one nearby that was spawning them or whatever. Anyways, we used to put pieces of ‘lurk shell on the walls. They can’t pierce their own shells with their claws, so it helped repel them.”

“You think they’re immune to the acid as well?” Garvey asks.

She shrugs. “No idea, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t do them much good if their queen could just…melt them, right?”

“We can’t go into battle with a hunch,” Hollis says. 

“Can’t exactly test it, either,” Garrett points out and Deacon suddenly longs for Moira. She’d know for sure with all that data she collected on mirelurks.

“Would plasma work to destroy or at least weaken the shell?” Garvey asks with a gesture at Deacon's pistol.

He shrugs. “Maybe. But if it's immune to acid, plasma might not be your best bet. Plus, you'd need a lot, more than you could reasonably buy or scrounge in a decent amount of time.”

“What about a regular old explosion? Like a missile?” another Minuteman asks.

The Corporal from before answers, “It just wouldn’t have enough force to pierce the shell.”

“Mini nuke?” calls someone else.

“That'll take out what's left of the walls,” Garvey says. 

“What about a gauss rifle?” MacCready suggests. “They're supposed to be able to punch straight through power armour. That'd get through a 'lurk shell.”

Now there’s an idea. 

“And I suppose that if anyone had one just lyin' around, it'd be you. Eh, merc?” Carson says waspishly. He gets a dark look from Hollis and the Colonel tells him to can it. 

Mac frowns at Carson but rolls his shoulders and keeps his mouth shut. Deacon's glad. He didn't expect this interaction to go smoothly, but there's no need to stir up undue trouble.

“We don't have one of those,” Garvey says to Mac, ignoring Carson altogether. “And frankly, I'm not sure they're anything more than a myth.”

“So...if I went to a lake and a badass chick gave me this rifle, I could be a modern King Arthur? A myth incarnate?” Deacon asks with a look of mock wonderment.

Every Minuteman in the room eyes him with varying levels of confusion and excited disbelief.

“You have one?” Garvey asks, barely containing the note of awe in his voice.

“The badass chick does,” MacCready replies. “Don't you people listen?” 

And, he just can't resist a little needling, can he? But the look of eagerness Mac spares Deacon a moment later belies his aloofness. Everyone wants a piece of the gauss rifle.

“What he said,” Deacon agrees, tipping his head at MacCready. “But I could borrow it from her. And hell, she'd want in on the fight anyways. Problem is...they're heavy guns. Like _really_ heavy. Too heavy to wield in combat without superhuman strength or a set of power armour.”

Garvey and Hollis share a look. “We have a set,” the Colonel says, after a moment, something off about his tone, “but no one capable of using it.”

“I can,” Garrett replies.

“No,” Hollis says, tone brooking no argument.

Garrett frowns, clearly displeased, but he says with the deference due Hollis' station, “Then let me train Captain Garvey or Lieutenant Davis.”

Garvey looks a little uncomfortable with that suggestion. Maybe he doesn't like confined spaces. Davis would probably jump at the chance. However, the real question is, why hasn't anyone been trained to use it before this? Deacon voices that question aloud.

“We've only got the one fusion core,” Garvey replies with a sidelong look at Hollis.

“I know where more are,” Garrett says with an undercurrent of annoyance. Like this isn't the first time he's had this fight.

“What use is one power armour?” Hollis says. “You'd at least five to provide any kind of cover support for a skirmish. One is just a giant fuckin' walking target, and that armour'll only hold up so long. Might've been a good show for those Deathclaw assholes, but its practicality is limited when it's just the one.”

Deacon frowns. There's something else going on here because that argument is ridiculous. Garrett damn near crippled the Minutemen offensive as _one_ man in power armour when they attacked Jamaica Plains. It's an offensive dream. Obviously, that should be plain to the Minutemen who fought there, so why hasn’t anyone stepped up to be trained?

“Look, the gauss rifle won't work without power armour,” Deacon says, frown still in place. “So, what gives?”

“Excuse me?” Hollis' tone is very much 'Don't fuck with me, son,' but Deacon is having none of it.

“Come on, that argument is pedantic bullshit. One suit of power armour can turn the tide in battle. Shit, it would've turned the tide in the favour of the Deathclaws if I hadn't known to pull the core. You should be using every available resource to stay alive, and yet you’re ignoring this massive boon? Do you want the Minutemen to die? Because let me tell you, that's what’ll happen. Someone bigger and badder is gonna roll up on the 'Wealth one'a these days and you won't be able to protect her, much less yourselves.” Deacon gives Hollis a hard stare. “So, I say again, what gives?”

No one speaks up and Hollis glares belligerently back at him. Even Garvey avoids eye contact. Deacon throws up his hands in exasperation.

“ _Fine,_ ” he snaps, angry disappointment building in him. Somehow, he'd gotten his hopes set on this course of action and he'll see it through, out of spite if he has to. “You want to bail on this operation before it's even begun, that's your call. I'll find some eager volunteers elsewhere. But you can be damn sure that when _I'm_ General, things'll be different.” Deacon turns to MacCready as Hollis' face drops in surprise. “Come on, Mac. We've got a DIA cache to raid.”

Once they're out of the room, MacCready gives him a _'What the fuck was that?'_ look, but Deacon doesn't have an answer. He can't believe he just threatened to become General of the Minutemen and whip them into shape. What the _hell_ is wrong with him? What happened to not getting involved? Goddamn JH for speaking to the long-dormant plans of the Lone Wanderer.

Deacon marches across town with Mac hot on his heels. If the Minutemen are going to piss about undecided, he has other things to do: DIA caches to raid, Railroad heavy enticing, a gauss rifle to wheedle out of Glory. When they make it to the hotel, Deacon lets Dexter know that they're checking out early. Back in their room, they gather the few things they've left behind, and shove them into their individual backpacks. 

As they work, MacCready asks, “Where to now?”

“35 Court.”

“So, Boston,” Mac makes a noise like a sigh. “A Highwayman sounds pretty great right about now. Walkin’ everywhere gets old fast.”

“Preach, brother.”

“Were you serious?” 

The question comes from the doorway, and Deacon turns, mildly surprised to see Garvey standing in it. He moves far too quietly for a man of his stature and heavily armoured coat.

“About figuring out how to do this without you boys and girls? Absolutely,” Deacon replies and shoulders his backpack.

“No. About the other thing. Wanting to be General. Our General.”

Well, shit. He didn’t think that remark would come back to bite him in the ass so quick.

“To be honest, I'd rather you get your own shit together, Captain,” Deacon says with a sigh. “I've already got a day job with a similar pay scale and no benefits. But since you folks can't decide where to call home let alone decide on whom to lead you, you obviously need someone to crack the whip.” Deacon gives Garvey a steady look over the rim of his sunglasses. “I used to be good at that. Or so I'm told. 

“And more importantly, you've got about six months before the Brotherhood of Steel starts breathing down your necks. So, unless you want to just hand the 'Wealth over to them on a silver platter, you'd better get your shit together and fast.” He moves toward the door on that declaration. Garvey steps aside for him pass and then follows him down the hall. Deacon tosses a, “Give Vera my love,” to Dexter as the three of them breeze through reception and out into town.

“How long are you gonna be gone?” Garvey asks as they move toward the market.

“That depends on you guys.”

“Then, what do we need to do?”

Deacon swears there's almost a “General,” tacked on the end of that question and he's immensely glad there isn't. He's not sure he could handle hearing it aloud like that. For all his talk about whipping the Minutemen into shape, he so far from being ready to hear it as anything but a jest. 

“Get someone trained on that damn power,” Deacon starts, “Or at the very least, let Garrett use it. And by the sounds of it, it's been sitting unused for the last three years, so it'll need a once over and probably a new paint job. Unless Deathclaw black is totally in these days.

“Second, get the fusion cores Garrett talked about. Seriously, why haven't you guys been listening to him about that damn power armour? Third, kill some 'lurks and harvest their shells. That power armour is going to be the main distraction and we can't have it melting, so figure out a way to attach the shells to it. We'll just have to trial by fire the whole acid thing. 

“Lastly,” Deacon starts, something occurring to him from the deep recess of his mind. A Moira mirelurk observation that he'd half ignored at the time, “raid some nearby hospitals for liquid nitrogen and make some hand grenades. If we can flash freeze the queen's shell and then hit it with the gauss rifle, it might make a big enough hole for a few missiles to get through.”

Garvey gives a brisk nod, eyes shining with excitement, “It'll be done by the time you get back.”

“Good. Maybe we can get this train rollin' again. Anything else?” Deacon adds when Garvey doesn't immediately peel away to start on the tasks.

“Are you certain about...the Brotherhood?” He says the name quietly, like a paladin might hear it and airdrop in, all gleaming and menacing in their power armour. Even out here, the Brotherhood has a reputation. 

“Yes,” is Deacon's solemn answer.

\- - - - -

They make Andrew Station by nightfall. 

The station is more or less the designated camping spot for caravans and travellers from Quincy before hitting Boston's inner city. When Deacon and MacCready arrive, there are a few caravans resting in buildings around the metro entrance as well as a couple roaring fires along the boardwalk.

Deacon plays a few hands of _Caravan_ with a couple caravanners as they rest from the walk up from Quincy and eat some of their rations. Despite not liking the game, Deacon knows it's in his best interest to get on the good side of a caravanner. That way, if one of them have to take a piss in the middle of the night, a guard is much less likely to blow their head off. 

In the morning, after sharing a can of Pork n' Beans and tossing a few caps at one of the caravanners that Deacon played cards for a couple cups of their coffee, Deacon and MacCready head out for 35 Court. He's not sure what they're going to find in the building this time—could still be Triggermen hold up there, or perhaps Skinny Malone did a little house cleaning after finding his vault and there will be little left except decaying corpses and the ferals that are drawn to them. Neither is a welcoming prospect, so he hopes that the cache JH mentioned is worth the trouble.

Frankly, he doesn't know what would be worse to discover: some long irrelevant dossier on a Communist infiltrator, a half-rotten disguise, and a few small calibre bullets, or a cache that's been long raided. Both would be disappointing in the extreme. 

It takes until midday to reach the building. 

The southern area of Boston has become lousy with super mutants over the last few years and the caution they must use to avoid a fight slows their progress considerably. On top of that, Deacon gets a little turned around at one point as he's never come from this direction to 35 Court and having to go blocks out of their way to avoid mutant camps messes a bit with his sense of direction. Eventually, they stumble into Postal Square (which he would have been happy to avoid) and Deacon's footing is sure again as he weaves through the rubble.

There are no guards on duty outside the doors this time and that could be both a good sign and a bad one. The barrel that used to contain a fire is long knocked over and the ash all but washed away. In the bright sunshine of the afternoon, it's hard to tell if the lights that illuminate the 35 Court sign are still working, but when Deacon gives a tug on the doors' handle, they slide open, so the building still has power.

They're cautious as they walk through the doors, weapons at the ready, but the gloomy lighting shows that they're all alone in the reception hall. 

“No sentries or lookouts,” Mac says, “I don't think there's anyone here.”

“No humans anyways. Let's hope the elevator goes all the way to the top.”

“You think there're...ferals?” MacCready asks, the tone of his voice making Deacon shoot a glance at him. He looks the way Garvey did when they mentioned mirelurks.

“Well, they like corpses and the probability of some fresh-ish ones being here is high. I figured that was implicit with the whole 'Skinny probably wiped these Triggermen out'.”

“I don't think I can...” MacCready swallows, visibly ill. “I mean, there's got to be other caches, right?”

“Yeah, but I gotta check this one first.” Deacon puts a hand on Mac's arm. There’s clearly a bad story attached to his fear of ferals. “If you need to stay here, that's cool.”

“Not much of a merc if I don't follow you into danger.”

“We all got things we can't deal with.”

“Yeah?” Mac asks, disbelief in his tone. “What's yours?”

“Memory Loungers.”

MacCready frowns in confusion. “Huh?”

“It's a long story. Anyways, if you want to laugh at my wussiness, drop by the Memory Den sometime and ask Irma to give you her spiel. It might make the whole thing clearer. In any case, I gotta check this cache.” Deacon moves toward the elevator and hits the call button. The doors open immediately. As he steps inside, MacCready puts a hand on the doors to keep them open.

“Did you face that fear?” he asks.

Deacon shrugs. “Sorta.”

Mac nods and steps inside the car.

“Didn't end well, though,” Deacon adds and punches the button for the 20th floor, the highest one available. The scrawled marking for the 13th floor is still clearly visible and he looks at it with something like fondness. This area of Boston isn't his favourite place, but any place explored with Nick is a good one.

“You coulda said that first,” MacCready grumbles as the elevator groans to a start. “And is this piece of crap gonna get us to the top?”

“Maybe. Might have a better chance if you don't name call, though.”

“If we make it there and back in one piece, I'll reassess my opinion. Not before.”

The elevator grinds to a halt on the 19th floor. There's the squealing of metal and then a rattling buzz sounds in the car signalling a problem. Deacon and MacCready have to coax the doors open, but once they make a gap, the doors pull themselves back, revealing the terrible state the floor has degraded too. It's much worse than Deacon remembers the lower floors being, and the debris crunches underfoot as they move. 

They look for the building's stairs but find a collapsed section of ceiling instead. From there, climbing to the 20th floor is a simple thing, and they come to a pair large outside doors sooner than Deacon would have figured for a building of this size. The doors are sealed tighter than a vault, but there's a terminal bolted to the wall to the right of the door. 

Deacon folds out the keyboard and taps the space bar, hoping that this section still has power. After a couple of moments, the terminal's screen flickers to life.

Welcome to ROBO Industries (TM) Termlink

Slocum Joe's – Best Donuts in Massachusetts!  
____________________________________________________

To ensure timely service, please place your order below.

Order: |

MacCready peers over his shoulder at the screen. “I'll have a jelly donut and a coffee—double-double.”

Deacon huffs a breath of laughter. 

“Seriously, though, what the heck? There a rooftop diner through this door?”

“As much I'd like a donut, it's doubtful. I think it's a sign and I'm supposed to provide the countersign, the password, to open the doors.”

“It's asking for your order,” Mac deadpans, like the idea of a sign-countersign combo is idiotic in this form.

“The point isn't to draw attention.”

“It's asking for your order. On the top floor of an office building.” 

“Hey, you got a problem with how the pre-war government ran its defence agency, jump in a time machine and give 'em a piece of your mind. Don't ask me to explain it.”

He doesn't need to see MacCready's face to know he's rolling in his eyes just now. “Well, any idea what the password is?”

Deacon shrugs. “An order of some kind.”

“Uh, _duh._ I coulda told you that.”

“Then why ask?” Deacon replies with a smirk as he flips the terminal into maintenance mode to search for the appropriate password. As he types in the final command, the screen shifts into this:

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink  
Password Required

Attempts Remaining: [] [] [] []

0x4490 $|+*+_)?>`^# 0x4A50 ?|/=[}|(,LAV  
0x499C >{,|;\\\:]@:> 0x4A5C AZZABEARCLAW  
0x49A8 ):1]@\\+*|:%> 0x4A68 S`_%?%=!/@#|  
0x49B4 []:(:{$}:''N 0x4A74 +/|/DECAFILL  
0x49C0 EWENGLANDCAN 0x4A80 YAPPLEPIE=@?  
0x49CC OLI=<”<#))|' 0x4A8C /NEWENGLANDE  
0x49D8 [,?VANHOUTTE 0x4A98 CLAIR>%=”[$]  
0x49E4 STRUDEL/#=*] 0x4AA4 ],}?:””)[%-$  
0x49F0 -*|@/.'}!<`( 0x4AB0 DECAFCOSTAGL  
0x49FC (?}!+=*':*$| 0x4ABC AZED.<'\|+#!  
0x4A14 -@[=_*.`|{-D 0x4AC8 -@>#”)*>'%//  
0x4A20 ECAFLAVAZZAC 0x4AD4 ILLYCREAMBAK  
0x4A2C OCA,^)/&{]># 0x4AE0 ALVA$]+`>/””  
0x4A38 COSTAJELLYDO 0x4AEC '[^=@]DECAFV  
0x4A44 NUTS+?+_$:”; 0x4AF8 HOUTTECPIE[# >

Deacon stares at the screen for several minutes, reading each of the orders and trying to suss out which one is supposed to be the countersign. They've really gone full bore on the whole 'place and order' thing. Even as he scans for the right phrase, there's a niggling thought in the back of his head that this whole thing is way too easy. Especially for a top-secret DIA installation.

As he flicks the cursor over the words, MacCready says, “There's two with donuts in them, try one'a them.”

Shrugging, Deacon tries the one with 'jelly donut' in its phrase, all the Slocum Joe's advertisements have a jelly donut in them, seems logical. The input tells him he's in error, however, and that one letter is in the right spot.

“Ugh. This is stupid,” Mac huffs, impatient, and turns away to scrounge for a cigarette.

“Patience, Padawan,” Deacon murmurs as he scans the selections again, looking for a flash of inspiration. Suddenly, one phrase stands out: DECAFILLYAPPLEPIE. “Found you,” he tells it and selects it. The terminal jumps back to the main screen where it asks for Deacon's order. When he inputs the phrase, the terminal unlocks and a new screen takes the place of the previous one.

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink  
Defence Intelligence Agency Cache #47  
________________________________________________

Welcome, Agent.

[Security Door Access]

Deacon selects the door access as MacCready checks the screen again, blowing a cloud of smoke out the side of his mouth and away from Deacon's face. 

“Huh. Didn't really believe this was a DIA cache. What was the password?”

“Decaf Illy Apple pie,” Deacon replies as the door start to unlatch.

“And how did you guess that?” MacCready asks as he pops the cigarette between his lips and pulls out his handgun for close quarter shooting.

“The first letters make out the DIA initials.”

Mac snorts. “That's stupidly obvious. No wonder we blew ourselves up. The frickin' defence agency using dumb-ass passcodes that some Wasteland asshole can hack into in under five minutes.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Deacon replies with mock indignation as the door fully pull back. MacCready makes to move forward, but his words have touched the raw nerve of Deacon's unease about the whole thing and he raises an arm to stop Mac. “Don't. Like you said, this is too easy.”

Beyond the door is a rooftop patio, with two raised platforms with a deteriorated railing around them. The patio is enclosed on three sides by the building's outer walls, but the fourth is open to the ground below. There might have been a railing on it at one time, but it's impossible to tell. There isn't much else on the patio save for some debris littering the ground, but on each wall, there is a small, outset room with a sealed security door. That makes Deacon hopeful that whatever was left here pre-war is still intact.

Deacon crouches and staying well back from the frame of the door, peers along the sides of it, looking for trip wires or pressure plates. He finds a laser tripwire box bolted to the outside of the wall a couple of inches back from the door's frame so you'd never see it if you weren't looking for it. The bright sunlight of the afternoon is obscuring the line, but there's a faint glow of red right in the centre of the laser that indicates it's active. 

Well, shit. No wonder the terminal was so easy to hack into, this place is probably booby-trapped to high hell. 

Deacon tells MacCready about the laser tripwire before adding, “There's probably more traps littered around, so you can stay here if you want but if you step over the threshold, you need to follow my footsteps exactly.”

MacCready shoots him a worried look and then gazes out the door. “So that way we can die together?” he asks, a heavy sarcastic tone to his voice.

“Pretty much,” Deacon agrees and steps over the laser tripwire, carefully planting his boot on the other side. 

He moves slowly across the expanse of the raised platform on the patio, stepping forward only when he's certain that there are no trip wires or pressure plates to mess up his day. Deacon wishes, the further he gets from the safety of the door, that he had paint on the bottom of his boots or bits of bread to leave Hansel and Gretel style so he knows which way to step on the way back. 

Despite his words, MacCready is following Deacon, at a discrete pace, and because he doesn't have to work so hard on stepping in the right place, he's the one that draws attention to the window on the side of the central outset room. It'll be nice to get a glimpse of what they're risking their necks for; then, maybe he can decide if it's worth the trouble. 

As they draw near, Deacon's focus is on the ground, so it's Mac's wondrous gasp of breath that draws his gaze up to the window. Inside, illuminated by a single, flickering light, is a pristine set of X-01 power armour, and Deacon's mouth goes slack in surprise. Of all the things he imagined finding up here, this was certainly not one of them.

“It looks like one'a those old Enclave sets,” Mac says as he moves closer, looking like he wants to press against the glass and Deacon touches his arm in warning.

“Their power armour was based on this, but they designed and built their own sets,” Deacon tells him absently. Between this set and the one the Minutemen have, they stand a real chance of taking that mirelurk queen out. The only problem is how to get this one out of here, and perhaps more pressing, how to do it without triggering the defences that this piece of equipment must surely have.

“How do you know that?” MacCready asks, looking at him critically.

“Er...” Deacon fumbles, feeling wrong-footed, his brain trying to think of a plausible explanation. “I know a former member. That's what he said.”

Mac's eyes narrow a bit at the response, but Deacon's words aren't really a lie, so they ring true. MacCready huffs. “You did more than just hang around during the conflict, then.”

“If you mean drink in every dive bar from here to The Pitt, then yeah. Meet lots of interesting people in bars.”

“Problems, more like,” Mac grumbles, giving him a pointed look, but he lets the subject go. Deacon breathes a metaphorical sigh of relief.

“That's my middle name, pal.”

They carefully move around to the front of the power armour room to further inspect it. The security doors are sealed as tightly as they were the day this power armour was hidden up here, and Deacon notes that there’s a swipe card reader on the door’s frame, but no terminal. The powers that be weren’t going to let some Communist with tech skills hack their way into this weapon’s room. Agents had to have the right ID or else it was a no-go, and considering everything up here is still intact after a nuclear war, Deacon doubts any kind of brute force would work.

However, he’s not without options. 

The Switchboard was the headquarters for the DIA in this area, so he might, _might_ get lucky and find a swipe card there that would work. If not, there may be a way to program one to work. That, however, would take him years to figure out on his own. Tinker Tom might have hacked his way into P.A.M.’s servers and put her to work for the Railroad, but the rest of the data stored on the few functioning servers are so highly encrypted that even Tom hasn’t been able to crack them. 

With the current time schedule Deacon is on, he doesn’t have years to spend untangling the encryption, but where it would take him years, it’d take JH hours to get through. Provided he can set up a stable connection between him and the Switchboard’s servers. Guess that means he needs to make a trip up to Ticon to talk with JH and then over to the Switchboard to see what can be done there, and somewhere in between all that fit in a dead drop to Glory. 

“Well, I guess you’re boned,” MacCready says as he gestures at the swipe card reader. “No terminal to hack this time. Too bad. It’d be sweet to see this thing in action.”

“Hey, don’t count me out yet. I’ve got a plan. One that hopefully means we won’t get murdered by whatever doom is sleeping behind those other doors.” Deacon points to the second and third security doors on the roof.

“Those aren’t part of the cache?”

“I think they're trouble with a capital T, and likely a capital R-O-U-B-L-E, too. There’ll be some serious protection for a piece of kit like this.”

“ _Great._ So, they’re the reason we’ve been avoiding the tripwires. Bots?”

“That’d be my guess. And not the friendly protectron kind, either.”

MacCready sighs roughly. “You’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll really try not to be, though. If that makes it any better.”

“It doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t.”

\- - - - -

By some miracle, they make it back to the relative safety of the main building without setting off any traps, and as they ride back down to the lobby in the elevator, Deacon tells MacCready that they need to part company for a few days while he rounds up a few friends to help take back the Castle.

“Yeah? So, what should I do in the meantime?”

Deacon shrugs. “Count your caps?”

“Like hell, I’m kickin’ it in Diamond City while you’re gone. That place is a bore.”

“Good noodles, though.” He could really go for some noodles. 

“‘Bout the only good thing there.”

“Aw, come on. It’s not that bad. Sure, it’s not as exciting as Goodneighbour, but I like the place.”

“Well, you would, being friends with the mayor and all.”

“Friends with Hancock too, ya know. Still like Diamond City better.”

MacCready gives him a narrow-eyed look. “Yeah? Well, that explains that,” he grumbles.

“Explains what?”

“Doesn’t matter. Does this friendship extend to the bar?”

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “Lookin’ for a discount?”

“Don’t wanna pay full price for that shitty beer if I can help it.”

Deacon chuckles. “Right? Well, if you mention the name Tightrope to Whitechapel Charlie, you might get a discount at the bar. Or at the very least get access to better stuff.”

“Might?”

“You’ve met the Handy. He’s a miserable prick. So, who knows, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

Deacon shows MacCready to the gates of Goodneighbour before peeling away with a, “I’ll be back to get you in a couple-three days.” He’s surprised that Mac didn’t question his need to go alone further, but maybe Mac’s tired of his shit already and wants a break. And really, who could blame him?

The afternoon is starting to disappear by the time Deacon hits the Common, so it’s the perfect excuse to head to Diamond City instead of going straight to Ticonderoga. He can head out in the morning after he’s eaten a fortifying bowl of noodles and slept in Nick’s bed. Well, at this point it’s probably their bed since it’s not like Nick sleeps in it, but it sounds better in his head if it’s ‘Nick’s bed’. Seems more…special, or intimate or something. 

It takes him about an hour to get to Diamond City, and by the time he strolls through the gates, Deacon can already taste Takahashi’s noodles. There’s a bit of a line when he arrives at the restaurant, so it takes several minutes for him to get his order in. When the bowl is in hand, he heads down Third Street, jiggling the rapidly heating bowl between his hands. 

At the agency, Deacon gives the door a quick rap before opening it, “Please tell me there’s a free bit of desk somewhere, ‘cause this bowl is burnin’ my—” he stops short. 

Ellie, Leslie, and Nick are all staring at him, with varying looks of pleased surprise, from Leslie’s desk. However, more importantly, and worryingly, Ellie is sitting in the client chair while Nick and Lez question her. Or they were before he walked in. With a hiss, Deacon sets his hot bowl of noodles down on the corner of the desk and looks at the three of them. 

“Well, I guess I better go get some more noodles,” Deacon tells them, “This strikes me as a three-bowl problem.”

This time, when Deacon carries another two bowls of Takahashi’s noodles back to the agency, he wears his winter gloves. There were a few protests about him buying more noodles, but he could see the lines of stress on Ellie’s face and that was enough to convince him that she needed some comfort in the form of nutrition. Once that was handled, they could work on some more emotional comfort. 

Back at the agency, Deacon hands out the bowls, and then grabs the extra folding chair from where it leans against the filing cabinets, settling down at the end of the desk. “So, feel like rehashing this problem, or should I just get the gist from Nick, later?” Deacon asks after a few bites of noodles to calm his grumbling stomach. 

“I…” Ellie sighs and pushes her noodles around in the bowl before taking a bite. “No. I’ll start again. You might be able to help and this is the only place I’m free to talk about it, so if you have questions, we can only talk here.”

Deacon gives her his full attention as she starts over. 

“For about six months now, I’ve been getting sporadic reports, rumours really, of extortion going on at the gates. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, traders, caravanners, private visitors, anyone with caps. The only ones that don’t seem to be victims of it, as far as I can tell, are actual citizens of Diamond City, and I assume that’s because they’re more likely to come to me and point fingers.”

Deacon nods as he swallows another mouthful of noodles. “Traders and caravanners are used to that kinda stuff. They wouldn’t even blink if that happened.”

“That’s what I said,” Nick agrees.

An annoyed expression crosses Ellie’s face. “Well, I don’t care if it’s normal everywhere else. _We_ don’t do that kinda crap. At least, I thought we didn’t. I honestly didn’t believe it when I heard Geraldine O’Malley mentioned one of her caravanners got stopped at the gates for caps. She certainly didn’t believe it, so I forgot about it. That the was the first time I’d heard about it. Then, about a week later I was down checking on the harvest progress, this was back in October, and one of the new farmers mentioned that he’d gotten stopped for caps at the gate. That was when I started looking into it. Once is a coincidence. Twice…”

“So why didn’t you come to Nick then?” Lez asks, clipboard set aside for a moment as Ellie talks about the things already covered, and takes few quite bites of noodles. 

“I had nothing, just a second-hand report that wasn’t believed and an unreliable first-hand. I can’t really say I have more than that now, just a bunch of piecemeal rumours and accounts. Even Piper wouldn’t go to press with what I have.”

“You spoken to her about it?” Nick asks. 

“No. If you can figure out what’s really going on, then she can have the whole thing. Blow it wide open. Until then, I’d rather keep this quiet. If it’s nothing, then I don’t want to be pointing fingers unnecessarily. If it is something, then I don’t want to tip my hand. Which is why I’m here. It’s a lot less suspicious if you casually question people, Nick, than if I do it.”

He nods in agreement. “Any idea who might be involved, or how high it goes?” 

Ellie shakes her head. “No. No one can pick out a guard with any kind of reliability since they always have their helmets and masks on. And…I don’t know, I mean, Nitti wouldn’t be involved, would he?” She gives both Nick and Deacon a meaningful look. 

“I thought he wanted to retire?” Deacon says instead of stating that he thought Ellie was going to find a replacement Captain. One who wasn’t a synth on The Institute payroll.

“We agreed that he should stay on, provided he was vocal about his retirement plans.”

Deacon presses his lips into a thin line. He doesn’t believe that Ellie should have handled it like that, but it isn’t his city to run. “Then, I guess it depends on how he plans to spend that retirement.”

“Flush with caps, or…” Nick trails off, the word ‘dead’ implied at the end for them. Leslie will likely get the implication too, but he won’t understand why they think that about the Captain. Though, this analogy might be getting a little off track.

Ellie sighs, frustrated, annoyed, and little sad. “I guess if he didn’t have a choice...but we agreed to discuss those kinds of things and if he isn’t coming to me about them, then I need to know it so I can make _sure_ he retires.”

Nick reaches across the desk and pats her hand. “I’ll find out everything I can and let you know as soon as I’ve somethin’ worth mentionin’.”

Ellie gives him a small smile. “I know and I wish I had more for you than that stupid scrap of paper—” she waves toward the paper that’s in front of Nick. She must have given it to him before Deacon arrived, “—and my wild conjectures.”

“Your conjectures are worth more than anyone else’s certainties, Ellie,” Nick tells her solemnly. “You don’t make guesses lightly.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself. Anyways…” she makes a gesture like she’s brushing the whole issue aside and returns to her noodle bowl. After a few bites, she looks to Deacon. “On a lighter note, I think I’ve found the leverage I need to get Vera and Dexter in the city.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“Well, Malcolm is still as intractable about the issue as ever, so I decided to go around him instead of through him. I talked with the O’Malley sisters about the idea and they mentioned it to the Salazars, and both families are interested in the idea of having a pre-war surgeon living in town. There’s a certain prestige in that to them, even if Vera is a ghoul. Plus, that level of knowledge is hard to beat.”

“I think Vera’ll like the idea of bringin' prestige to town,” Deacon tells her with a smirk.

“Well, don’t go beating the welcoming drum just yet. Interested doesn’t mean agreed, but along with the Hawthornes, that’s 2/3rds of the Upperstanders leaning toward a yes. Give me some time, but I think by virtue of being outnumbered, Malcolm and the Codmans will just have to get used to the idea of a ghoul couple living in Diamond City again.”

“Aw, Ellie. My shrewd little negotiator is all grown up.” Deacon wipes a pretend tear from his cheek, just below the lens of his sunglasses. “I’m so proud of you.”

She gives him a sardonic little grin, something a little resigned in her eyes. The job is never quite what you imagine it to be. “I have come pretty far, haven’t I?” 

After they’ve all finished their supper, Ellie says her goodbyes and leaves, telling them that her work as mayor is never done, but that Deacon had better come by tomorrow to say goodbye or else. As she slips out the door, she shoots Deacon a look that suggests she would like to stay and hear about what happened in Quincy, but as she said so herself, she just doesn’t have the time right now. Nick will fill her in later, he’s certain. 

Leslie packs up to go not long after that, with a word to Nick about organizing this new case in the morning, and thanks to Deacon for providing food. He flashes the two of them a quick grin as he disappears out the door, and then they’re alone. 

From his spot at the end of Leslie’s desk, Deacon gives Nick a smile and says, “Hey.”

Nick’s hand slides into the one he has resting on the desk. “Hey, yourself.”

They sit like that for a few moments, just basking in each other presence, despite the fact Deacon was just in town a couple days ago. Of course, he hadn’t been in Diamond City for probably a month and a half before that. Running around with the Railroad makes him feel like both the ant and the grasshopper, and he might need to seriously consider retiring if he plans on having time to deal with the Minutemen, in whatever capacity that ends up being. Despite is previous words, he’ll try and avoid being General if he can help it.

“How’d it go in Quincy?” Nick asks eventually. Deacon makes a frustrated noise and drops his head to the desk. Nick chuckles. “That bad, huh?”

“They’re _hopeless!_ ” comes his muffled exclamation.

“They are not. You wouldn’t bother, otherwise.”

Deacon lifts his head back up. “All this time I haven’t because they are. Only now, there’s a shit storm comin’ our way and I have to make a friggin’ silk purse outta this sow's ear.” He tells Nick what happened at The Castle, then the fallout out in Quincy with the Minutemen brass. “A friggin’ suit of power and it sits in _storage._ I don’t understand. We had a plan for taking back The Castle and it screeched to a halt because no one was willing to don the suit. Like, I just…” He makes another frustrated noise and flops back in the chair.

He can feel Nick laughing at his dramatics. 

“Can you use power armour?”

“…Yes,” he replies somewhat reluctantly. He’d sort of been hoping it wouldn’t come to that, but with the suit he and Mac found and only Garret capable of using power armour aside from himself, it’s an inevitability at this point. Deacon then tells Nick about the discovery made at the top of 35 Court. 

“Huh. Who knew such a thing was sleepin’ up there.”

“Kinda the point.”

“So how do you plan to access it?”

“Well…” Deacon begins, rising to lock the agency door and pausing a moment to listen in paranoia, before deeming it relatively safe to talk. “Our HQ is in a place called The Switchboard. Which is the old DIA East Coast headquarters.”

Nick’s eyebrows raise and he lets out a low whistle. “How the hell did you stumble on that?”

Deacon shrugs and takes his seat again. “No idea. It was already HQ when I joined. Don’t matter, I suppose, what matters is I might find what I need there to access the armour. Or at the very least, get JH to find it for me.”

“I’m I ever gonna meet this computer pal of yours?”

“You ever gonna visit Ticon? HR was just tellin’ me the other day that you don’t call, you don’t write, it’s like you don’t care what happens to them.”

Nick shakes his head with a laugh. “Doesn’t seem right droppin’ by without you, and you’re the one who doesn’t write, kid.”

“I’ll have you know that I write lots. Novels, even. I just don’t happen to write to you, is all.”

“And therein lies the problem.”

“Pssht. You don’t want me to write. Then I’d have even less of an excuse to drop by.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Nick says in all seriousness and pulls Deacon up from his chair. “You don’t visit often enough as it is.” 

He leads Deacon back to their private area and manoeuvres him into place next to the dresser. Then, Nick starts working Deacon’s tool belt off as he stands there, one hand on Nick’s shoulder, the other resting on the top of the dresser. 

“You can come with me to Ticon tomorrow if you wanna meet him. I mean, you’ve pretty much met all the important people anyways, what’s one more?” Deacon tells him with a smirk. “Don’t know if JH will approve of you, though…”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Don’t need his approval. Just interested in talkin’ with someone who knew you before.”

“You _just_ talked with Mac. Like two days ago.”

“Not the same and you know it.” Nick gives him a look that clearly communicates his disapproval of Deacon not telling MacCready who he actually is, but they’ve already had that argument. “Speakin’ of which, where is he?” Nick asks as he loops Deacon’s tool belt over the coat rack next to the dresser. 

“Goodneighbour. Diamond City is as dull as dishwater, apparently.”

Nick starts on his gun belt. “I think the conversation with Ellie just now proves otherwise.”

“Hey, I didn’t say I agreed. You’re here, how could it be?”

Nick flashes him a soppy sort of smile at that and leans in to kiss him. It’s lovely and perfect, and as always, a little frightening. Deacon hasn’t been this happy in a long time, and it feels like every time he gets what he wants, finds his happiness, it’s violently taken from him. That was one of the big reasons he was so reluctant to be with Nick, and for the most part, he’s happy he made that leap, but there’s that lingering worry that history will repeat itself once more. 

He’s not sure what he’d do if something happened to Nick. Dive right off the deep end in all likelihood, and he’d rather not go back to that place.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asks as he pulls back. “You went all tense there for a second.”

“Jeez, those are some sensitive servos you have.”

Nick gives him a look for his non-answer and sets Deacon’s gun belt aside. Deacon huffs.

“It’s nothin’. Just wanderin’ thoughts is all.”

“I’m not going anywhere, kid,” Nick tells him and wraps his good hand around the base of Deacon’s skull.

“Get outta my head, buster.” 

How is it that Nick can just nail those insecurities?

“Then stop thinkin’ it.”

“How can I? Shit, Nick, you spend your days trompin’ all over the Commonwealth and half the people in this place shoot synths like you on sight for fear of The Institute.” Deacon’s gaze drops to his boots. “I—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You think you’re the only one of us that worries about that?” Nick tilts his face back up to meet his. “Jack, all I wanna do is bundle you up in a blanket and keep you safe, here, with me. It kills me when you go. Especially, when you casually drop you plan to try and kill some wasteland monster like it’s just a regular Tuesday at the office—”

“That daily grind man, it’s a killer.”

“Can be,” Nick agrees solemnly, infinitely good at killing a joke, “and I worry that if something happened to you, if Braun ever showed up again, that no one would know who you are.”

Braun. God, if there was ever a name Deacon would be glad to never hear spoken aloud again, that would definitely top the list. He can only hope that monster has run out of second chances and that Nick killed whatever part of him that was clinging to Deacon’s brain. 

“Let’s not speak of the devil, yeah? Don’t wanna jinx his appearance.”

“And if he does show up? Then what? You need a plan, kid. _We_ need a plan.”

“I have a plan. The plan is to shoot him. Like a lot. I’m not sure what else I can do aside from askin’ Pastor Clements to pray for me.”

“I worry that if that time comes, you won’t be able to pull the trigger.”

“Oh, I’ll shoot him.”

Nick looks at him steadily and says, “We can’t always destroy the things we fear.”

Deacon feels a flash of annoyance. Why does Nick have to keep bringing up the subject of Braun? “Well, then _you_ can shoot him. I don’t care which one of us does it, just as long as he’s dead at the end of it.”

“He will be,” Nick promises, deadly serious, “but you better not be.”

“Don’t plan on it,” he replies.

Thing is, and here’s the truly frightening part of it, Braun never wanted him dead. He wanted _entertainment._ It was only after Eden killed Braun, or tried to anyway, that he decided to get a little revenge. If he somehow got free and out into the Commonwealth, Deacon doesn’t believe that killing him would become a priority again. No. Braun would start a new game and this time, he wouldn’t be confined to a simulation and a few victims. 

“Seriously, though, can we stop talking about Braun? I feel like he’s taken a page outta Beetlejuice’s book and will appear if we keep sayin’ his name.”

Nick sighs. “Alright, but please don’t ignore it until it’s too late.”

“Who, me? Nick, I’d never.”

He doesn’t even deign to give that load of bullshit a response, and Deacon can’t blame him. 

“So, are we done with the doom and gloom? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, kinda puttin’ a damper on my libido.”

“Yeah?” Nick asks, a laughing grin making an appearance on his face. It’s a nice change from the seriousness of a moment before. “Want me to make sweet, sweet love to you, or what?”

Deacon lets out a bark of laughter and wraps his arms around the back of Nick’s neck. “Since I have to spend the next week burning holes in my soles, that might not be the best idea, _but…_ a blowjob wouldn’t go amiss.”

Nick laughs at Deacon exaggerated eyebrow waggle. “You ever gonna stay for longer than a couple days? Hard to treat you right when here one day and gone the next.”

“Well…if we somehow manage, by the grace of God or whatever, to kill a mirelurk queen and her brood, then I’d say that calls for a vacation, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah. I’d say so,” Nick replies, another one of those soppy smiles on his face, and leans in for a kiss. 

\- - - - -

They set out the next morning for Ticonderoga, after swinging by Ellie’s office so that Deacon can say his goodbyes, and for Nick to tell her that he won’t be gone for longer than the day. 

“It’ll just be few short hours there and then he’s got to be off, so I’ll be back in the late afternoon.”

Ellie nods at that and gives Deacon a hug. “Don’t do anything stupid, you hear? I swear I’ll kill you if you end up dead.”

“Double incentive to stay alive. Sweet. How could I possibly do anything else?”

After Ellie’s shoos them out of her office, they head out of town, giving Sammy Swatter his customary pat on the shoulder as they leave the courtyard. The trip across the river is nothing to write home about as High Rise and the gang have been keeping the bridge near Ticon free of raiders as of late. Bullet has recently ended his heavy training with Glory and has been assigned Ticon as his base now that the Gunner’s have set up shop a few blocks away. Deacon thinks Glory has been hanging around Augusta for a similar reason but isn’t entirely sure if she’s on assignment there or just cooling her heels. 

Deacon gives JH’s camera a little wave after he led the two of them on his customary weaving block approach to check for snoops and other annoying baggage that could be following them, and they head for the elevator. Bullet’s hunting rifle greets them at the main floor of Ticon and Deacon throws up his hands. 

“I swear officer, it was only one beer. I know better than to operate heavy machinery while intoxicated.”

High Rise peaks around Bullet’s wide shoulders. “I gotta wonder just what piece of machinery you mean when you say that.”

Nick snorts.

“This synth is cool?” Bullet asks, lowering his rifle a fraction.

“Yep,” High Rise says, “This is Nick Valentine. He’s cool.”

“Coolest cat around,” Deacon agrees and steps off the car. Bullet’s rifle lowers completely. “I told him all about you whining that he never visits, and he was just dyin’ to come along.”

HR rolls his eyes. “It didn’t come out like that, Nick, but it’s still good to see ya. Though, you didn’t have to make the trek.”

“I’ve got an ulterior motive, High Rise,” Nick tells him as he follows Deacon off the car, “as glad as I am to see you folks in one piece.”

Deacon leans in conspiratorially close to HR. “He wants to meet JH.”

“ _Oooh._ Finally bringing your man to meet the parents, eh?” High Rise claps him on the shoulder. “‘Bout time.” 

“As Deacon has pointedly reminded me, I am not his father,” comes JH’s amused voice, “but I’m looking forward to being introduced.”

“Same,” Nick agrees. 

“I guess that’s my cue to get this awkwardness started,” Deacon says and gestures for Nick to follow him. 

“You stickin’ around for lunch?” HR asks as they climb the stairs. “Should I let Codsworth know to make mac and cheese?”

“You know me too well, pal. Lunch would be great. Can’t stay much longer than that, though. Plan on hittin’ HQ today too.”

“With Nick?” High Rise’s expression goes from amused to surprised. 

“No. Even I’m not _that_ crazy.”

High Rise’s laughing huff of, “Yeah right,” follows them upstairs.

Outside JH’s control centre (in his head he sometimes thinks of it as Level 1A), Deacon lights a lantern. There’s still no proper light in the room since Jolene had to commandeer that power source, and it’s a little like a crypt in there without some illumination. One of these days, JH’s power needs are going to outstrip the two fusion generators that are ticking away on the building’s lower level, and Deacon just hopes that before that happens, he can figure out a way to get JH on to The Institute’s main servers. (Never mind the obstacle of finding The Institute in the first place.) 

The door of Deacon’s old room is kept open to help try and dissipate the heat generated by the cobbled together serves, but it still hits him like a physical wall when Deacon raises the lamp and steps through the door. There are a half-dozen desk fans running on every available surface, but it’s still oppressively hot in the room. He hopes that Jolene has a plan for the summer because, at this rate, JH is liable to start burning out delicate electronics. 

There’s only one chair sitting in the room, tucked neatly into the desk, and Nick gestures for Deacon to use it. He settles for leaning against the room’s doorway and slides his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. The heat doesn’t bother him, lucky bastard. 

“Nick, this is JH, or Henry is what everyone else calls him.” Deacon gestures to the camera in the corner of the room. “And JH this is Nick Valentine, my…er, Nick.”

“It’s good to finally meet,” Nick says. “Hear plenty enough about you, figured it was ‘bout time we got acquainted.”

“Indeed.”

“Kid’s here on a bit of a mission, so I’ll let him talk now so he can break for lunch, but I figure there’s lots to talk about when he’s gone.”

“Of that, I’m sure.”

Deacon makes a face. “I’m already regrettin’ this.”

Nick reaches out and runs his fingers through the short hair at Deacon’s nape, a comforting gesture. For all his bluster, Deacon’s a little worried about what the two of them might end up talking about. Nick knows a lot about his life before, but not all of it, and JH could fill in some mighty big blanks. He’s not quite having second thoughts about this, but almost.

And this, boys and girls, is why you don’t offer to do shit on the spur of the moment.

“You needn’t worry,” JH tells him, tone soothing. “There will be much sizing each other up before any secrets are shared.”

Behind him, Nick makes a noise of agreement. 

That really doesn’t make him feel any better, to be honest. The last thing he needs is an animosity between the two of them. “Right, well…don’t start any fires or anything.”

“Of course not. Now, what do you need to discuss?”

\- - - - -

April 23rd, 2287

RE: Monster Hunting

Dear Ass-Kicking, Name-Taking, Raider-Killing, Big-Fucking-Hero Glory,

Do you ever think to yourself, “Boy, I sure have killed a lot of creatures, humans, monsters, and robots but surely there must be something left in this wild Wasteland that I haven’t yet murdered,”?

Well, wonder no more! We at Commonwealth Murdercations have just the adventure for you: a mirelurk queen.

Worry not, stalwart adventurer and monster slayer, for a mirelurk queen is two-stories of acid spitting, massive claw-crushing, death-dealing monster that has cheerfully murdered less talented heroes.

So, if this sounds like a Murdercation you’d like to participate in, please see your friendly neighbourhood Murdercation representative, Deacon, at our HQ. If you aren’t available to meet there, please send a dead-drop to your nearest Commonwealth Murdercation mailbox! 

Happy hunting!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on top, baby! *dances*


	30. He whistled the Stars and Stripes Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It is a damn'd ghost we have seen,_   
>  _And my imaginations are as foul_   
>  _As Vulcan's stithy._
> 
> _-Hamlet (3.2.87)_

Deacon makes HQ in the late evening, with a wary and hesitantly curious Jolene in tow.

During lunch a few hours earlier, High Rise talked about JH beginning to push Jolene out of the metaphorical nest as of late. Encouraging her to go on package runs, take on greater patrol duties, have Parade and HR give her some advanced marksmanship lessons, and suggesting to High Rise that Jolene be assigned to regular agent duties. 

“I mean, not that I don’t appreciate havin’ her back, so to speak, but I was used to runnin’ this place with what was technically six agents, but logistically only five,” HR said to him as they ate lunch together earlier in the afternoon, Bullet quietly eating and listening beside them. The rest of the in-house agents were out on runs or patrols so Ticon was quiet. 

“Tryin’ to get her used to the idea of not needin’ her, maybe?” Deacon suggested. It was the only explanation that made sense. JH had to be preparing her for the eventuality of The Institute and not needing her to maintain his mess of servers. 

“That eventuality seems a long way off at this point,” High Rise had replied.

“Things tend to happen all at once. Besides, Jolene is smart, capable, and resourceful. She’d be a hell of an agent with a little experience behind her. Not that I’m not immensely grateful for all the work she’s done for JH, but she’s way more than just his maintenance worker.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score and your visit has gotten me thinkin’—”

“A dangerous past time.”

HR shook his head with a laugh. “Yeah, most days. So, I was thinkin’ that you should take her with you when you go to HQ. She’s been an agent for 3 years now and that’s usually when one gets an introduction to the brass. Provided they’re trustworthy enough for that, and Jolene’s proven herself a dozen times over. I think it’ll be good or her to see what we look like beyond Henry’s server room.”

So that’s how the two of them end up circling Lexington’s streets, checking for any problems around Slocum Joe’s, before Deacon leads Jolene inside and downstairs. Her frowning assessment of the basement is scathing, though silent, and Deacon pretends not to notice. When the bookcase slides open to reveal the elevator and communications panel, her expression shift into curious, but still skeptical that a donut shop could be a worthy place for The Railroad’s headquarters. 

“Is there a storage warehouse or something below?” Jolene finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her. 

“Behind a bookcase? That seems unlikely,” Deacon replies flippantly before he presses the comm. button and gives the code.

“You could’ve recently installed that to hide the entrance.”

“Someone certainly did,” he agrees.

Jolene gives him another one of her frowns, but this one is more considering than scathing, though she says nothing. 

A moment later the elevator arrives, and as it starts to take them down, Deacon says, “Let’s take a trip into the past, shall we?”

Down in the Switchboard’s main entrance, Kelly K. greets Deacon with a nod. When she catches sight of Jolene, she stops her and questions her presence. Deacon explains that Jolene is visiting from Ticon and that she’s the one supplying all the information about the synth patrols that the agents have been taking out as of late. Then, Deacon adds, 

“High Rise decided it was time for her to make the big boss’ acquaintance. I’m just the guide.”

Kelly gives Jolene a grin, warming to the idea of messing a bit with an unfamiliar agent. “Don’t let ‘em scare you. They always look like that,” she says.

“Like what?” Jolene questions, skeptical.

Kelly just nods toward the hall and doesn’t answer beyond, “Sly Nick and Dez are in Checkpoint Alpha.”

“Thanks,” Deacon says, throwing Kelly a smirk, and leads Jolene out into the hall. She casts an annoyed look back at Kelly K. as they descend the stairs into the main base. 

The darkish halls of the Switchboard are a comfort to Deacon and he can feel the tightness between his shoulders ease the deeper they go. Jolene, on the other hand, doesn’t much care for the cool concrete halls and looks uncomfortable as she shies away from them. Then, she catches sight of the Switchboard’s directory on the wall. Her eyes go wide as she quickly scans the signs, and her previous discomfort is forgotten. 

“This was a military facility!” Jolene says with some excitement and runs a hand over the sign for ‘Checkpoint Alpha’.

“Ding, ding! We have a winner. Come on, I’ll show you the best part.”

He leads her down the twisting halls to the point at which they all converge, and at the doors into the CIC, Deacon pauses a bit for effect (he’s never gotten the change to show a junior agent around the place and feels it’s his duty to impart a bit of showmanship in the gig) before pushing the doors open. The initial view isn’t quite as wondrous as he would like, but at the room’s windows, Jolene makes an appreciative noise at the activity and scope of the workspace spread out below. 

Deacon spies Desdemona on the lower floor, talking with Ms. Boom, but Sly Nicholas is nowhere to be seen. He should introduce them first, even though _he_ prefers Dez, it’s not his place to colour Jolene’s view of The Railroad hierarchy. 

“I didn’t know there were this many people—I mean, I guess I had to know in a sense because there seems to be safehouses everywhere, and dozens of moving pieces, but…” Jolene trails off watching the activity.

“There are a lot of people in-house right, but it doesn’t usually look like this. Most are out on runs or patrols or dead drop retrieval. Must’ve hit it at the right time.”

“What sort of technology was left here? What about the mainframe? Are there more places like this? Could we find weapons or armour, or something to cripple The Institute?”

“I’m glad you asked. That’s the reason I might need your—” 

The doors at the end of the CIC open, and Sly Nick and Carrington step through, in the middle of a conversation that’s almost an argument. 

“ _Obviously,_ the goal is mass production,” Carrington says, replying to something they didn’t hear, an edge to his voice, “but as I just said, I haven’t fixed the underlying issue yet.”

“Which only happens with long-term use,” Sly Nick says with a dismissive wave. “Something needs to be done about the Gunners, and we can’t just…” He trails off as he notices Deacon and Jolene at the far end of the room.

“Deacon,” Sly Nick says in greeting, moving across the room, “Didn’t expect a report in person. High Rise sent everything we needed.” He gives Jolene an appraising one over. “Unless your back for an assignment?”

“Actually, here on the behalf of HR. This is Jolene, one of his agents. He figured it was time that she make your acquaintance.” Deacon turns to her, “Jolene this is Sly Nicholas, the big boss ‘round these parts.”

Sly Nick’s face warms in recognition of her name and he holds out a hand, “You’re the one with Gen 1 and 2 patrol reports. They’ve been a _big_ help. Every time we take out a patrol, P.A.M.’s predictive model gets a little brighter.”

Jolene flushes and looks uncomfortable with the praise, but shakes Sly Nick’s hand. She’s never liked taking sole credit for detecting the synth patrols, but JH agrees with Deacon that his presence should be kept secret from those outside of Ticon. Neither one of them trust the secrecy of The Railroad—JH believes Deacon about Mender, thankfully.

“Uh, you’re welcome, but it’s a joint effort. I don’t do it alone.”

“None of us do, but credit where credit’s due.” Sly Nick turns slightly to Carrington. “You’ve met the Doctor, yes? Last year?”

Jolene nods. “It’s good to see you again. How’s your project coming?”

Carrington throws a scowl at Sly Nick. “Slower than we all would like.”

Sly Nick makes a noise of agreement. “Have you been down to see Dez?”

“Not yet,” Deacon replies.

“Then we should remedy that. Carrington, we’ll talk later.”

Carrington nods once and heads back out of the CIC, likely back to his lab in R&D. Sly Nick gestures for Jolene to follow and before she disappears out the door with him, Deacon touches her arm to tell her he’ll be in Tinker Tom’s lab in the Databanks. He hasn’t told her exactly what he wants help with, except that he would probably need some. In the meantime, he’ll scope the situation out and see if he can’t manage on his own. 

Preferably before Dez hears he’s in-house and he has to explain that he’s not actually here for another assignment. Well, _dodge_ an explanation, anyway.

Deacon winds through the corridors, knowing the path to Tinker’s lair by heart, whistling as he goes. He passes Mr. Mathers in the hall, juggling an armload of gear and heading to his workshop in R&D. The space is technically communal for gear repairs and modifications that an agent wants or needs, but Carrington and Mathers have more or less claimed it as their own for their respective work and damn if you can find a moment in the day when the two of them aren’t in there. Agents in the Switchboard often have to pull a midnight R&D raids just to get workspace and tools.

As he steps into the Databanks, after Mathers declined his help, Deacon raps on the door, hoping he doesn’t startle Tinker too badly. As always, there’s a low hum from the couple consoles that Tinker has running for his own research, but the rest are dormant. He’s never seen the servers on the level below this one, but Tinker described them once as a massive forest. If that was the drugs or an accurate estimation, Deacon has never been sure, and as long as the control for the signal tower is on this level, he’ll never have to find out.

“Tinker?” Deacon calls, song dying as he stops in the middle of the room. “Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?” He turns a full circle, spying only P.A.M. whirring quietly away in her corner.

Deacon stands for a moment, wondering if Tinker isn’t down in the kitchen for a late supper, and decides to check the terminals for what he needs without Tom’s guidance. Then, there’s a flash of thing dark blue out of the corner of his eye and Deacon spins, feeling a tingle of something…wrong-ish creep across his neck. 

“Ah, Tom? What is this, hide-n-seek?” Deacon moves toward where the flash disappeared and leans around a desk to find nothing but an overflowing trash can.

He’s not imagining things, right?

Deacon leans back from the edge of the desk, half-turning to start checking the room again when he hears the soft patter of sock feet on the floor. His cheerful, “Hey, Tinker, you got a ghost?” dying on his lips as a heavy weight lands on his back and Deacon pitches forward onto the desk with a grunt. There’s a sudden, sharp prick at the junction of his neck and shoulder, and a burning pain immediately streaks out along his shoulder and down the side of his back. With a sharp hiss, Deacon twists his body off the side of the desk so the weight on his back crashes to the floor.

It’s Tinker Tom and he’s got the biggest needle Deacon’s ever seen.

“What the hell?” he gasps, anger flaring in him as the burning pain increases exponentially as it travels. Deacon tries to stand upright, but the pain makes him woozy, and he fumbles for a chair. “What did you…inject me with?”

“I had to Dee,” Tinker says and scrambles upright. He’s looking exceptionally rough like he tangled with a yao guai and barely made it out alive. He’s thinner than Deacon’s ever seen him and there’s something horribly wild in his eyes that makes Deacon recoil. “The Institute, they got you, man. But it’s not your fault. No-no-no-no. They’ve got these _nanites_ in the food and they hear everything. They mess with your cells and stuff, and make you one’a them.”

Fear settles in Deacon’s gut, but he tries for calm when he says, “You didn’t answer my…question. What—what was it?” 

The pain is travelling down his arm and further down his back, but where it began, it’s dying out, and he doesn’t believe that’s a good thing. Especially not since his fingertips on his right hand are starting to go numb. 

“Lots of stuff—battery acid, stinger poison…it’s to destroy the nanites, Dee. This is the _only way._ We’ve gotta kill ‘em. Hard restart. You aren’t yourself,” Tinker tells him as he starts digging through a desk drawer. 

“Oh God…” Deacon says, in a shocked murmur, and stands. He’ll lose his arm and more if he doesn’t get to Carrington now. His feet are wobbly under him, and his right arm screams in pain, but R&D isn’t too far from here. If he can just—

Tinker shoves a chair into the back of his legs and Deacon crumples into it, halting his escape. “You gotta wait. Just a few more minutes. It takes time for the nanites to die.”

“ _Tom,_ I need Carrington. This could kill me.”

“Shhh. It’ll be okay, man. I don’t want you to die. But they’ve got your brain, Dee, don’t you see? They’ve messed with it and we gotta be secure. Not like, Big Rock, or Xander, or Ruby. They’ve weren’t. They didn’t know. But I know.” Tinker holds up his syringe again, this time full of something green and glowing. “You were whistling a different song. That’s how I _knew._ They got you and you didn’t even know.”

“Different…?” Deacon racks his brain, trying to come up with what song he was even whistling, but it’s slow going with the pain. 

Tinker approaches with the needle and Deacon shoves against the floor, rolling himself away. Now, he can see the glowing blood pack on the desk, leaking his green sludge where Tom stabbed it with the needle. That’s just what he needs on top of this, to be irradiated to high hell right before he dies. Deacon rolls the chair toward the door, but Tinker grabs the armrest and drags him back with a strength that belies his thin frame. 

“This’ll destroy the cells they’ve messed with and put you back to normal,” Tinker tells him and pulls his left arm down to inject him again. Deacon resists so Tinker has to use his full strength to fight him, and then Deacon shoves him, making Tom’s own momentum work against him as he tumbles to the floor. 

Deacon spins the chair and rises as fast as he can, moving toward the door again. His right arm is practically useless now, hanging limply at his side, so he uses his left to stabilize himself as the world lurches to one side. He can hear Tinker babbling behind him and his quick footsteps on the floor, so Deacon draws breath to call out. He clearly can’t handle whatever psychosis Tom has fallen into and damn if he’s going to lose his life for the man’s delusions.

However, the shout that’s building is cut off with a whoosh as Tinker grabs his arm and yanks Deacon around, causing him to stumble over his unsteady feet and fall. He tries to catch himself with his left hand, but without the aid of his other arm, he feels something crunch and twist as all his weight lands on the one hand. The pain sucks any remaining breath from his lungs as he flops over onto his side to get the weight off his arm and Tom uses the opportunity to inject Deacon again. 

At least the irradiated blood doesn’t burn. Or maybe the pain of it is insignificant next to everything else. 

His vision starts to tunnel then and he gets hot as a rushing noise fills his ears, like water cascading over a fall. If he weren’t already prone on the floor, he would worry about fainting and falling, as a wave of nausea grips him. Tinker’s manic face is hovering above him now, and Deacon tries desperately to think of an escape. At this point, he’d gladly take another fall if it meant he’d get away from Tom. 

Alive.

_Look. Over here,_ a voice says to him in a whispering sort of lilt. He turns his head, the room sliding into a sludgy mess that a distant part of his brain recognizes as a symptom of an extremely high rad count. To the left, a collection of swirling, dark shapes, looking like some woman’s disembodied shadow, is crouched next to him. It points to an empty Nuka Cola bottle on the ground. 

To his right, Deacon can hear Tinker talking more about the nanites and his Institute piloted brain. As much as he doesn’t want to hurt Tinker, he also doesn’t want to die, so Deacon stretches his hand out, a sharp pain shooting up his arm, meaning to grab the bottle, but it’s just out of reach. The shadow thing gives the bottle a little push and Deacon gets his fingers around it, clutching it like a lifeline as he swings the bottle in an arc and right into the side of Tom’s face. 

Pain radiates from his wrist up his arm, to where it explodes into a knife-sharp sensation in his upper arm, and Tom crumples. Deacon makes to roll over, but he’s exhausted and it just seems like too much effort, especially when everything aches beyond all reason. 

_Little protector,_ the voice says again, singsong, and Deacon turns to find the shadow reaching out to him. _Follow me._

He reaches to take the hand, his own tingling in the shadow’s grasp and feels some of his resolve returning, some of that stubborn, hard-headedness that seems to run in his family, and Deacon rolls over. Getting off the ground is difficult with only one functioning arm, broken at that, but somehow, he does. The pain of it makes him woozy again, and he fears falling and erasing all his hard work, but the shadow touches the side of his face and it dissipates somewhat. 

_Come,_ the shadows says and leads him out of the Databanks. 

Deacon has to lean heavily on the walls as he walks, the cool concrete a blessing for his overheated self. He focuses on the shadow’s swirling form, it’s the only thing that is distinct in the mess the radiation has made of his vision. He doesn’t know where he’s going, trusting that the shadow will take him to Carrington. 

There’s no one in the halls. Deacon keeps expecting someone to see him and come rushing up, but no one does. Of all the shitty timing. If he wanted to walk through the halls alone, he’d meet every in-house agent, but now that he wants someone to find him, to _help_ him, they’re all absent. 

The walk feels endless. The halls go on forever, and when a corner does come, he thinks that it’ll be the last one, but then there’s more hall and more walking. He can’t keep going. He’s flagging fast from his previous resolve. It'd be so easy just to sink to the floor and rest. The only thing that keeps him from doing that is the idea that he promised Nick a vacation, and he can’t die before they get that. 

_Almost there, little protector,_ the shadows says as he starts to slow as if it read his mind. It moves closer, placing a comforting hand on his back to gently push him along. 

There’s noise just ahead, sounding like a conversation, and Deacon almost weeps with relief. The shadow guides him from the hall and into a doorway, judging from the change in lighting, and he hears a questioning and concerned, 

“Deacon?”

The shadow moves in front of him, blocking his view of the room. _Evil is coming, little protector, and when Quincy falls, he’ll be here._ Then, with one last brush against his cheek, the shadow disappears, and Deacon can just make out the white blur of the Doctor’s coat. 

“Carrington…” Deacon gasps, half a prayer, half a plea. 

Then, everything goes dark.

\- - - - -

A prickling sensation runs up his back, like a pair of fingers walking their way along his spine, and Carrington shivers in the wake of it. He turns slightly, looking to see if Mathers’ has turned his damn drying fan on again, and instead catches sight of Deacon standing in the doorway of R&D. He turns fully as Deacon sways on the spot, already cataloguing the way his right arm hangs limply, and that his left held stiffly with pain.

He looks like he’s been a fight. What the hell? Carrington just saw him a short time ago and he was fine.

“Deacon?” he says, moving from his workspace. He doesn’t look like he’ll be standing much longer and the Doctor’s pace picks up as he crosses the room. 

“Carrington…” Deacon gaps, pleading and looking far too pale and sweaty. 

He only just manages to catch Deacon as he buckles. Carrington swears as he takes Deacon’s full weight and attempts to lower them both to the ground without causing further damage. 

“Mathers!” Carrington barks, his fingers picking out Deacon’s pulse point and finding it thready. 

“Here,” the quartermaster says, crouching next to Carrington. He’d been moving toward Deacon the same way Carrington had. 

“Get the gurney from my clinic. _Quickly._ ” 

Mathers nods and dashes out of the room. 

Carrington lies Deacon fully on the ground, taking better stock of his condition. He doesn’t note any visible damage on Deacon’s right arm, but the left wrist has been broken or very badly sprained. Carrington rises and grabs a toolbox from the table and props Deacon’s legs up, then he digs through Mathers’ scraps for materials to make a splint for Deacon’s left arm. He doesn’t want to cause any further damage when they move him.

He’s just tying the last leather strip around the bushed handle of a broom when Mathers returns with the gurney—he must have had trouble with the breaks, it wouldn’t have taken him so long otherwise. Carrington heard him banging the thing down the hallway in his rush long before he arrived. Along with the gurney, Mathers has found Beatrice Bell and enlisted her help. Between the three of them, they lift Deacon from the floor and onto the gurney, before Carrington directs them to return to his clinic, posthaste.

“And for _Godssakes,_ Mathers, don’t hit every damn wall on the way,” Carrington adds as he runs on ahead of them to his clinic. 

The hall to the Databanks is on his right and Carrington catches the sight of Tinker Tom walking unsteadily down it. He pauses for a moment but makes to move on because Tom is still conscious and walking, and whatever is wrong with him can wait until he’s dealt with Deacon.  
Tom catches sight of him and calls out, “Doc!”

“Not now, Tom,” Carrington replies and picks up his pace to the clinic. 

“Wait!” He can hear Tom scramble after him. “You seen, Dee?”

Carrington stumbles to a stop and then turns on Tom. “What happened?”

Tom grabs the edges of Carrington’s coat to steady himself. He looks _wild_ —his hands are shaking and his pupils are blown wide. It reminds Carrington, his stomach dropping sickeningly at the recall, of the Wastelanders that The Enclave used to experiment on. 

“The Institute got him, but I fixed it.”

Mathers and Bell rush the gurney past the two of them and Tom tracks it with his eyes. Carrington tries to remember the last time he checked in on Tom, and he can’t. He’s been so busy with his Stealth Boy prototype lately, so close to fixing that last problem.

Carrington grabs Tom’s chin and pulls his face back around. “What did you do?” he demands, pushing aside his own discomfort in favour of studying Tom. His psychotats, while not exactly safe, do not cause this kind of reaction, even at high doses. 

“They had him, Doc. I had to. I couldn’t let them spy—”

“ _Specifics,_ Tom.”

Tom starts shaking his head. “You gotta let it work, man. It won’t do any good if the nanites aren’t destroyed.”

Carrington growls at him. Those damn nanites again? Paranoia taken to the extreme. Did he get a hold of Buffout? Mixed with Mentats it causes paranoid delusions and the Psycho would only fuel them. He shakes himself slightly. One idiot at a time; Deacon must be the priority.

He lets go of Tom and heads into the Databanks at a jog. Inside, he spies the leaking glowing blood pack and curses. A couple weeks ago he noted the missing blood pack and chalked it up to a miscount; only a ghoul would have a use for the green sludge in those packs. At least, that’s what he thought. 

He starts tearing through the Databanks, looking for something out of place. Tom rushes in behind him.

“Hey! Quit that— That’s _important,_ Doc! Don’t throw that— Stop, please!”

“You tell me what you did or I swear I will smash everything in this place, starting with P.A.M.’s terminal,” Carrington barks.

Tom hesitates, clearly torn. Carrington lifts the terminal from the desk with a grunt and Tom darts forward. 

“Okay! _Okay._ There was a lot of stuff in my serum and I don’t remember most of it, but the main part was battery acid and stinger poison. Then there was the glowing blood, but that was only to kill the rogue cells.”

Carrington practically drops the terminal on the desk in his haste to get to the clinic. He runs, flat out, down the short hall from the Databanks and around the corner to his clinic just outside Sigint. Inside, he sees Mathers readying for a stimpak shot. As he skids to a halt, Carrington shouts,

“Don’t!” He yanks the stim from Mathers' hand. If he doesn’t get the acid diluted and the venom neutralized before administering a stimpak, Deacon’s system will crash from the overload. “Get out of the way.”

Mathers hastily retreats from the room, hovering near Bell by the door.

“Can I do something?” Bell asks as Carrington tears through his filing cabinet looking for discarded stimpak syringes, a bag saline solution, and antivenom. 

“Elevate his legs and get that damn vest off.”

While she works on that, Carrington grabs a discarded Nuka Cola bottle and some of the Bobrov moonshine he picks up in Bunker Hill for sterilization purposes and dumps a generous amount in the bottle. He shakes it with a thumb over the opening for about ten seconds or so, then dumps the alcohol in a bowl before filling the Nuka bottle about three-fourths full of saline solution from the bag and them pouring the anti-venom in to top it off. 

“This is practically—” Bell makes a noise of exertion, “—an impossible task. This thing must weigh a ton.”

Carrington turns back to where Bell is working, and almost barks at Mathers to give her hand when he notices that the quartermaster has vanished. He frowns at the empty doorway before turning back to Bell. She’s gotten the vest undone, and has placed Deacon’s arms above his head to facilitate removing the garment, but fighting with the weight of the vest and Deacon’s limp form is proving to be difficult. He shifts around her until he’s below where she’s standing and grabs a fistful of Deacon’s dress shirt with one hand and cradles the back of his neck with the other. 

“On three, I’ll lift him, you pull,” Carrington says and Bell nods. “One, two—three!” He lifts Deacon off the gurney a few inches, holding his head steady as he’s uncertain the level of damage that’s been done. Bell gives a few sharp tugs on the vest before it finally comes free, causing her to stumble back into his filing cabinets. 

“Jesus, what’s in this thing? I’ve held combat armour that weighs less,” Bell huffs and hauls Deacon’s vest to the side of Carrington’s desk to get it out of the way. 

“ _That_ has saved his life on more than one occasion,” Carrington says as he gives Deacon a more thorough inspection and swears when he sees the necrosis on Deacon’s right trapezius, spreading along his shoulder and disappearing down his back. “Goddamnit, Tom,” he hisses as he pulls back the shirt as best he can, hindered by the fact that he can’t balance Deacon on his side to get a better look as neither arm can support weight right now. 

Carrington turns back to his filing cabinet and searches for his bandage scissors. Once in hand, he cuts the shirt away around Deacon’s shoulder and down his arm. The effects of the necrosis are spreading, the skin is a bluish-white colour where the acid and venom has burned away the connective vessels and tissue. 

Just then, Mathers appears again, dragging what must be the entire in-house population with him. Carrington swears, loudly and if he could’ve spared it, he would’ve thrown the Nuka Cola bottle at Mathers’ head. “Do you people not have better things to do than watch a man die?” he growls at the assembly, and all but the most senior agents scatter.

“If an agent is hurt in-house, we do need to know about it, Carrington,” Desdemona says, voice tight with worry, but not accusing. 

“And I don’t need a damn audience,” Carrington replies as he sterilizes his hands in the alcohol he poured into the bowl before shaking the contents of the bottle together. 

“You’ve got one now, so make the best of it,” Sly Nicholas says, the calm of his voice at odds with his stance. 

Carrington tries to ignore them as he sterilizes the needle of the syringe he pulled and then draws up a plunger full of the saline solution. He injects it first in a prominent vein on Deacon’s arm, picking the broken one in case the acid has destroyed the larger veins in the other, to get the antivenom circulating through his bloodstream. Then he goes back for more and uses it on Deacon’s arm, where the necrosis is spreading, jabbing it into the muscle in several different spots to make sure he gets as much of the venom and acid as possible. Once the syringe is empty, he draws up some more solution and then gestures for Desdemona and Bell to come into the clinic. 

He directs Bell to stand at the head of the gurney, and Desdemona at the side. Together they pull Deacon into a sitting position, supporting his head and left arm, while Carrington tears the rest of Deacon’s shirt off before lifting the undershirt to get a look at the damage along Deacon’s back. When he sees how far the necrosis has spread, Carrington swears. Deacon will be lucky to walk after this. He injects the solution the same way as before, and this time when he goes back for a third draw, Carrington makes a line along the muscles that frame the spine trying to halt any further damage. After that’s done, he tells Desdemona and Bell to lie Deacon down again. 

With the last of the saline solution, Carrington injects the original needle site.

The next two hours are a blur of stimpaks, a minor Rad Away treatment (so as not to stress Deacon’s system out anymore than it already is), a fight with Desdemona and Sly Nicholas about whose responsibility it is to keep tabs on Tinker Tom, then checking on Tom in his room and finding new reasons to hate himself for not paying better attention when his test confirms his suspicions about Tom using Buffout. 

As Carrington sits in his chair, leaning heavily on hand propped on the desktop, the sound of Deacon’s breathing is the only comfort he has that, at the very, least he didn’t fuck _that_ up. How many times has he had to say that he’s not a trained medical doctor? Yes, he had some medical training with The Enclave, and yes, he’s had to learn more out in the Wastes, but he’s fundamentally a scientist and not a physician. 

Carrington doesn’t want to be a physician. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s doctor; there’s too much responsibly in that, too much pressure to keep from making fatal mistakes. He screws up with a piece of technology, the only one hurt is himself. He screws up in a surgery, he could cost someone their life. 

He joined The Railroad when Helios asked him to and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but these days, it's looking less and less like it was.

“Hey.”

Carrington looks up to see Jolene standing in the doorway. He sort of grunts in her general direction, not feeling up to company. She takes it as an invitation anyways.

“I brought you a sandwich. I don’t imagine you’ve had time to eat.” She sets down a plate on the desk. Carrington wouldn’t have thought he was hungry, but the sight of the sandwich makes him suddenly ravenous.

“Thanks,” he says and takes a bite out of the neatly sliced halves.

“Sure.” Jolene leans her hip against the side of the desk. “How’re you doing?”

Carrington gives her a look over the top of his sandwich.

“Deacon is gonna be fine, I’m sure. He had you to look after him,” she continues when he doesn’t answer, “But I heard what Sly Nicholas said about you not watching Tinker Tom to the detriment of everyone, and I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t your fault.”

He snorts in disbelief. 

“I know I’ve only spent like three hours in this place, but the one thing you don’t forget from spending time in The Institute is how to be invisible, and you know what I’ve heard?”

Carrington sighs and puts down his sandwich. Clearly, she’s determined to talk. However, he’s not. “I don’t care,” he tells her.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Believe it. Now, if you aren’t injured, go away.”

Jolene rolls her eyes. “Fine. Be that way. If you decide to be civil, I’ll be in the Databanks. Deacon wanted my help with something and I think I’ve an idea what it was. Maybe, I can get it done before he wakes.”

She glides out of the clinic then, as quiet as any stealth heavy Carrington has known. Does she realize that she might be more useful to The Railroad in that capacity than as a maintenance worker for Henry? 

He returns to his sandwich with gusto and as he polishes it off, he considers that perhaps he needn’t have been quite so rude. Nobody else bothered to make sure he had lunch, after all. 

The next morning, Carrington bumps into her in the hall. He’s barely functioning after spending the night in his clinic’s chair to make sure that Deacon made it through the night. Carrington’s on his way back from the kitchen, carrying the largest mug of coffee they have, trying to find his way back to humanity and _desperately_ missing the coffee rations they had in The Enclave. That stuff tasted terrible, but it had a jolt like nothing else. 

Jolene gives him a small nod as they pass. He can’t be sure that returned it. He thinks he did. Back in his clinic he half sleeps his way through his cup. Mechanically raising it to drink, mind blank. Carrington is so out of it that he doesn’t even register the door to his clinic opening until someone is shimmying onto his desk. 

“They told me you didn’t get anything to eat when you were down in the kitchen.”

Carrington looks up at Jolene. He doesn’t even have the energy to frown at her. 

“I brought you some cereal,” she continues and sets down a bowl in front of him, “but just FYI, I’m not gonna be here longer than a week, so you might want to figure out a long-term way to feed yourself.”

He makes a noise. What exactly it means, even he doesn’t know. Carrington scoops a spoon full of the cereal and cringes at the sickening sweetness of it as he chews through the half-soggy stuff. Sugar Bombs. _Ugh._ He eats them anyways. When he’s done, he feels marginally more human. At very least, the sugar has raised his heart rate. 

“Great. Now you only look dead tired, instead of warmed over death. How ‘bout you catch forty winks while I keep an eye on Deacon.”

“I can’t leave him in your care,” Carrington grunts, voice rough. “He’s not past the critical stage yet. If something were to go wrong—”

“I know where you sleep,” she interrupts, and he stares at her blankly. “Er…that sounded creepy. What I meant was, because of that whole ‘invisible’ thing I mentioned earlier, I scouted out the layout and memorized important locations. Your room is one of them—still not sounding much better, is it? _Point is,_ if something were to go wrong, I can find you. Plus, you’re not doing him much good if you faint from exhaustion.”

Carrington almost argues further, but she’s made a perfectly logical, if somewhat weird, case. And real sleep would be much appreciated right now. That or proper, Enclave coffee. Since he can’t have the latter, the former will have to do. He stands, the sugar giving him a mighty head rush. 

“Don’t hesitate to get me if something happens,” he tells her when the black spots in his vision have cleared. 

“I won’t, but it won’t, so just sleep.”

When he wakes in the gloom of his room sometime later, Carrington has a flash of panic. How long has he been sleeping? What time is it? He fumbles for the desk lamp that serves as his light and checks his pocket watch for the time and then checks it again when it doesn’t make sense. He holds it up to his ear and when he doesn’t hear the faint tick of the gears, he realizes that he’d forgotten to wind it before he went to sleep. 

He takes moment to curse himself for his forgetfulness before crawling out of bed, a headache joining him, to get dressed. Carrington feels more human after his sleep, but still craving a decent cup of coffee, as he always does. Not for the first time, he considers asking Henry if there are any old Enclave bunkers in the area to raid for coffee, but it’s a frivolous waste of resources and that he can’t justify. 

Back in the clinic, Carrington finds Jolene sitting in his desk chair, feet propped on the edge of Deacon bed, reading a _Silver Shroud_ comic aloud. 

“Your days are done, Shroud!” she growls, and then shifts voices, “Dealing with you, perhaps, Doctor. Arrrg!” Jolene frowns slightly at the page. “What’s with the yelling bit? I mean, you don’t actually yell at someone before you shoot them, you just shoot them. Do you yell at people, Dee?”

Carrington half expects Deacon to answer given her question, but there’s nothing and Jolene isn’t phased by it. 

“I didn’t think so. Anyways, there’s a fight. Doctor Brainwash is throwing henchmen at the Shroud and he’s just taking them out.” She turns the comic sideways, “With some impressive acrobatics. Seriously, I thought that kinda stuff was reserved for the Mistress of Mystery. She probably gave him a few _pointers,_ amiright? She could give _me_ a few pointers any day of the week…” Jolene trails off when she finally notices Carrington standing just beyond the doorway to the Clinic and flushes slightly. 

“He’s not in a coma. You don’t need to talk to him.”

“Er…it can’t hurt, right? Besides, it entertains me. Well, until someone hears me macking on the Mistress of Mysteries.” She mutters that last part, but he still catches it.

“There are worse things than pining after a cartoon,” Carrington replies and steps into the Clinic to take Deacon’s vitals, annoyed all over again when he pulls out his pocket watch and remembers that it isn’t wound. 

“Sure. So, who do you pine after?”

“What?” Carrington asks, startled. 

His heart beats a little faster at that question as if hearing it means she can read his mind or see his proclivities on his face. It’s been ten years since he was part of The Enclave, but he still has a moment of panic and self-loathing whenever someone asks him where his _interests_ lie.

“The Mistress’ curves or the Shrouds stern jaw?”

“Oh…neither.”

“Gotcha. Manta-Man.”

“I do _not,_ ” Carrington says, slightly offended. “Fictional characters don’t quite do it for me.”

“Then who does?”

“What does it matter?”

Jolene shrugs and tosses the comic behind her where it lands on Carrington’s desk. “It doesn’t, but I’m curious." She gives him an honest questioning look. "Aren’t we friends yet? We’ve been pen pals for the last year.”

“We’re _colleagues,_ not friends.”

Her face falls slightly at that and surprisingly, he feels remorse for being the cause of it. He usually doesn’t care what the other agents think of him.

“Alright then, _Doctor_.” She stands, gathering the comic and the few dishes she’s accumulated over her time in the clinic. “Deacon’s been asleep this whole time; nothing to report.” She brushes past him and out into the hall without so much as a backward glance. 

Carrington pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh and focuses back on Deacon. If she hadn’t touched a sore spot he wouldn’t have reacted like that. However, even as he thinks that the excuse rings hollow in his ears.

Desdemona comes back a couple hours later to check on Deacon and by extension Carrington. He’s feeling more irritated than usual and is certain that he won’t be…amicable if Dez starts to question his own well-being after the last couple of days, so Carrington leaves her to look after Deacon while he slips off to check on Tom. Giving her no more warning than a simple,

“Good, you’re here. Watch him while I check on Tom.”

He swears she almost splutters at his retreat and it’s _very_ satisfying.

Visiting Tom, however, is not. There’s no satisfaction to be had in neglecting a charge to the detriment of another agent. At the very least, Tom’s withdrawal symptoms aren’t as bad as he feared they would be. Since he’s so dependant on his psychotats, Carrington can’t use Addictol to clear the Buffout addiction, it would shock his system too much. Frankly, at this point, Addictol could very well kill him. If Tom were to ever decide to kick his chem habit completely, he’d have to wean himself off rather rely on another drug to clear his system.

It’s only been two days, but Tom’s delusions have lessened considerably, and he asks after Deacon with genuine concern. 

“He’s gonna be okay, right? I didn’t mean to hurt him, Doc. I thought…I thought it was gonna help.” Tom fidgets, nervous, restless, _ashamed._ “I wouldn’t ever hurt you guys. Ya know that, right? Like-like with malice, ya know?”

“Yes. I do. Deacon will recover. However, you won’t if you don’t keep up your caloric intake.” Carrington points at the stack of untouched plates. 

“Not hungry. Never hungry. There’s too much to do.”

“I can certainly agree with that, but you know you’ve lost too much weight. That’s what the Buffout was for. So, while I laud your attempts to correct your weight-loss, you must gain weight the old-fashioned way.”

Tom eyes the plates like one might look at a particularly tedious task. 

“You don’t have to eat everything, but at least a third of every meal from now on. You’ll feel better for it.”

Tom sighs. “I _guess,_ ” he says and starts picking half-heartedly at the most recently brought plate. “When can I get back to the ‘banks? I’m startin’ to go stir-crazy in here.”

“When you’ve cleared the withdrawal symptoms. Another few days, at least.”

Tom groans. “Oh please, no! I’m dying in here, Doc. There’s nothing to do! Can I like go to the ‘banks on a conditional basis or somethin’? Alternate mornings and afternoons? _Anything?_ ”

Carrington shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Tom, but Sly Nick has expressly forbidden it until I can clear you of the Buffout-Mentat side effects—”

“You mix up your meds _one_ time and everyone thinks you’re crazy.”

“I don’t,” Carrington says seriously and Tom hesitantly nods as if he wasn’t sure of the fact himself. “I’ll see if I can’t get Songbird to get a terminal set in here for you though, with access to the Databank servers.”

Tom lights up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He looks around the small room. “Gotta clear some space for it, and-and find a plug and some ethernet cables…”

Carrington leaves him to figure out the logistics of fitting a terminal into the space. On his way back to the Clinic, as he passes by the Databanks. Carrington pauses briefly as he considers going in and apologizing to Jolene for…what? Telling the truth? They aren’t friends. He appreciates her help with his Stealth Boy project, but that doesn’t make anything more than colleagues.

He shakes his head, annoyed by his unease about the situation between them, and continues on. 

\- - - - -

Deacon wakes to a string of swears. Or maybe the swears wake him. He blinks against the light of the room, feeling like it’s the full brightness of the sun glaring at him. He moves his arm to try and block the light, his muscles stiff and sore, but functional. Deacon groans. Then, Glory’s face is hovering above him, the light haloing around her head, and her face twisted somewhere between worried and pissed off. 

“Fucking hell, Deacon,” Glory hisses, looking like she wants to smack him. “Can you just go one fucking _month_ without almost dying? I get here expecting a little fun and you’re laid up in here, like some damn greenhorn.”

“Sorry?” Deacon croaks, voice rusty and harsh.

“You should be. _Asshole._ Shit, what will Valentine say?”

“Er…nothing?”

If possible, Glory gets even angrier. She finally smacks his chest, trying for an area with the least amount of damage. He still winces. In the background, Carrington makes a noise of disapproval. 

“You’d better not keep this from him. He’ll find out one way or another. Hell, I’ll send him a dead drop if I have to.”

She’s more determined than he is that he not screw things up with Nick. It’s kind of weird but in a good way. 

“Okay, okay. You win.” Deacon pauses a moment, swallowing. Carrington hands him a glass of water and he takes a grateful gulp. “Do you wanna kill a mirelurk queen with me?” 

There’s a shocked noise from Carrington and Glory smacks him again. 

“Are you serious?! After all this?” she asks. 

Deacon shrugs as best he can and nods. The Brotherhood of Steel isn’t going to destabilize itself. 

“Fine. Fuck it. _Yes._ Though, why the hell are you doing it?”

“You’ve just barely begun recovering and you plan on doing something else to severely injure yourself?” Carrington asks with some disbelief. He knows better than to _fully_ disbelieve any insane plan on Deacon’s part. 

“To be fair,” Deacon says, “I already marked my dance card. Plus, I didn’t expect to get jumped in HQ.”

A flash of something like guilt passes over Carrington’s face. Looks like someone got chewed out. Deacon’s not sure how to feel about that. One the one hand, Tinker’s an adult, and if he overdoes on his drugs or mixes shit he shouldn’t (for what else could’ve caused his crazy reaction to Deacon’s whistling?) then he’s responsible for that and the consequences. On the other, the health of agents is Carrington’s purview and if he isn’t watching for signs of trouble, then he isn’t doing his job. 

It’s Glory that speaks first and Carrington lets her. “Who does? Tinker, God love him, has never been all there.”

“We all cope in different ways,” Carrington replies.

“And those coping methods led to Tinker thinking Deacon was ‘possessed’ or some shit and almost killing him,” Glory snaps. “I’ve always said he shouldn’t be allowed all that damn leeway with his chems, but everyone else seems to think it's worth the benefit of having his brains. I think it’s fucking cruel to use him like that. We’re supposed to be better than The Institute.”

Carrington almost winces at that, but Glory turns away before she catches it. Perhaps he's considering a former employer or guilty about not advocating for Tinker? Deacon can’t quite parse the reaction.

“Deacon and I need to speak now that he’s awake. You two can continue this suicidal mission talk later,” Carrington says. 

“Uh oh, ‘bout to get lectured,” Deacon replies.

Glory rolls her eyes. “For all the good it’ll do,” she says and Carrington makes a noise of agreement. “I’ll come by later for more details, Dee.” She spares a look at Carrington as she leaves. “And for a recovery timeline.”

When her footsteps have faded, Carrington stands and closes the clinic’s door. That’s not a good sign. 

“Give it me straight, Doc. How long’ve I got?” Deacon asks in a mimicry of Nick’s accent.

“Honestly? I have no idea. You constantly defy all self-preservation limits and safety.” Carrington sighs as he sits back down, not even commenting on Deacon's voice. Boy, what the hell has been going on since he's been out? “When Tom shot you full of battery acid and poison, I didn’t think you’d walk again. It caused severe necrosis along your back and right arm.”

A moment of panic seizes Deacon and he attempts moves his legs. Relief floods him when they respond.

“I did imply that my initial diagnosis was wrong,” Carrington says with a hint of a smirk.

“Maybe lead with that, next time,” Deacon grumbles.

“You also had dangerously high levels of radiation.”

Deacon shives slightly as he recalls snatches of that swirling group of shadows. Wasn’t there something he was supposed to remember? “Yeah…”

Carrington gives him a narrow eyed-look at that but continues without commenting. “Still do for someone who’s not a ghoul, but the stress on your system meant I couldn’t do a full RadAway treatment and that appears to have worked to your advantage.”

“Uh…okay?”

“I’m not an expert on ionizing radiation by any means, that was never my field of expertise…before, and certainly isn’t now, but for all the damage it does to normal cells, your own seem to _thrive_ in it.”

“Oh…” Deacon murmurs. It’s one thing to tell yourself you’re okay with becoming a ghoul, it’s another to hear that it’s actually happening. He honestly doesn’t know how to feel about it. If anything, a longer lifespan will be a pain in the ass.

“It’s quite interesting. They’ve regenerated themselves, are regenerating as we speak, with the high levels of rads you still currently have. You can thank that for the continued use of your legs. I had very little to do with it.”

“So…how long?”

Carrington shrugs. “Another day? I can’t say for sure, but I’d try not to stress the new repairs for at least a week. So, perhaps save the ‘lurk hunting for next month.”

“A day?!” Deacon blurts incredulously. He’s never heard of it happening so fast, not after the bombs fell anyway. Could it be because of all previous radiation he was exposed to? He hasn’t exactly been trying to avoid it all these years.

“Is that surprising? It’s unusual, I suppose, but Rave recovers with similar speed when exposed to radiation.”

“I…guess we’re in the same boat, then.”

“In a sense, yes.”

Deacon considers this new situation for several silent moments. Carrington turns to some work on his terminal, leaving Deacon to think. 

“So…I should go see Vera, then. Get rid of these fillers before they fall outta my face.”

Carrington looks up, surprised. “What?”

“Ya know, skin sloughing and what not. A permanent face change. Not sure how good I’ll be as a spy, be hell, it’ll be a new challenge.”

Carrington blinks at him, clearly not understanding. Then, it dawns on him. “Jesus, Deacon. If you were actually becoming a ghoul, I would’ve stated that clearly,” he grouses. “Much like a Child of Atom, you have a radiation tolerance that has morphed into a regeneration mutation. As far as I can tell, you are _not_ becoming a ghoul.”

“Oh.” Deacon will admit to a flash of relief at that, then he slides into annoyance. “Again, you probably should’ve lead with that.”

“Apparently.”

Deacon shoots a glare a Carrington. The bastard is silently laughing at him. “Can I too get a medical license from a Sugar Bomb box?”

“I never claimed to be a medical doctor.”

“Oh great, so I’ve been lettin’ a hack, hack me?” He didn’t realize that Carrington wasn’t a medico. What did he do for The Enclave, then? 

“Cut the dramatics, Deacon. I’m hardly a hack. You, of all people, should know that.”

“When am I ever dramatic? I’m offended you would even suggest such a thing.”

Carrington rolls his eyes.

“Well, despite your questionable status as a doctor, I get to keep my skin and heal major wounds, so…that’s pretty cool.”

“There’s nothing questionable about it. I _am_ doctor, you twat,” Carrington huffs. “And this isn’t an excuse to ignore rad levels more than you normally do, but rather the opposite. I have no idea what the long-term effects will be. The regen mutation may end up causing dangerous, cancer-like growths, or cause organ failure because it isn’t repairing the damage, simply forming new cells that aren’t tailored to that specific organ function, or a hundred other things that I can’t even _begin_ to imagine.”

“So, I could still end up as a ghoul?”

“If some other horrible mutation doesn’t kill you first? Yes, it’s a possibility; however, I’ve never studied ghouls, so I don’t know the odds. Just try not to get heavily irradiated unless unavoidable or absolutely necessary, beyond that, you have no control.”

Deacon sighs. “Story of my life, Doc. Thanks for keepin’ me alive.”

After that jarring conversation with Carrington, Deacon gets some lunch brought to him and speaks to Glory about The Minutemen and how her gauss rifle is a pivotal part of his plan to kill a mirelurk queen. She’s doubly on board with the knowledge that it’s not just for the heroic glory of killing a monster, but also to help The Commonwealth Minutemen. 

“’Bout time we figured out some way to repay them for helping us with those Deathclaw pricks.”

Then, Deacon has to tell that he hasn’t _actually_ gotten approval from Sly Nick or Desdemona for the operation. “So, don’t go like blabbin’ it around. I really don’t need a lecture right now, or worse for them to say no. I mean, I’ll still do it, but’s just better if I don’t have to disobey an order.”

“Ask forgiveness later, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

The smirk that was lighting her face a moment before, vanishes as she says, “Don’t do that to Nick.”

“Me? Never.”

Then, he asks her check up on MacCready in Goodneighbour. He’s clearly going to be gone longer than the three days he said and Deacon doesn’t want Mac to think he’s dead or reneged on the caps or anything. Besides, he knows that Glory won’t want to stick around HQ that long anyways. She likes to be out on a mission, preferably killing things, rather than stuck cooling her heels. If it’s good for them both, they could go down to Quincy together and wait for him there. He imagines that the two of them will get along like a house on fire. 

Later in the day, Sly Nick and Desdemona come by to see how he’s doing. Carrington leaves the moment they arrive and it’s a little awkward. They tell him that Tinker is doing better, a bad chem mix is what caused his whacked reaction, but they’re curious as to what set it off in the first place. As far as they can tell, Tinker has been using Buffout for about the last month because of weight-loss he’s suffered from the appetite suppressing effects of Psycho, and as Carrington explained, Mentats and Buffout used together is a _really_ bad idea. For the last month, Tinker has been a ticking time bomb.

“And no one noticed?” Deacon asks with some incredulity. “Didn’t anyone visit him in his lab? Ever?”

“How can you tell regular Tom delusions from ones caused or warped by chem side effects?” Sly Nick replies. “Tom prefers to work alone and he’s so far beyond the rest of us in his skill and intelligence in his field that no one can keep up with him.”

“So? Take a coffee break down there and chat him up. Even if you don’t get half of it, you’ll at least be able to take stock of his condition. You might have caught his jump in obsessiveness if you’d looked in on him.”

“Tom’s health in Carrington’s responsibility. We’ve already talked with him about it,” Desdemona says.

“So, you’re just gonna wash your hands of culpability? Carrington’s got a helluva lot of things to deal with, and yeah, he should’ve checked up on Tinker, but so should’ve you. You two claim to run this place, right? Then, agents’ health is just as much your responsibility as it is his.”

The longer he talks about this the more ticked off he gets. Glory’s right, but it isn’t leniency that’s the problem, it’s plain old ‘not my problem’ mentality when it comes to Tinker and his chems, and Deacon’s just as guilty of it.

“Tinker needs our support, otherwise we’re just using him, and considering our work, that shouldn’t sit well with any of us.”

There’s a moment of silence where Sly Nick and Dez share a look. Then,

“I see you heard Glory’s lecture too,” Dez says with a hint of a smile.

“Yep. Though, it was more of a rant. Her point is entirely valid, and clearly, the way we deal with Tinker isn’t working. Case in point—” he gestures to himself. 

Sly Nick sighs. “Agreed. Perhaps we shouldn’t have come down so hard on Carrington.”

Desdemona nods. “We were scared. For both of you. You’re lucky to have your life, Dee.”

“Don’t I know it. Too much luck and not enough brains.”

Neither one of them disagrees with that.

It takes another two days before Carrington is willing to release Deacon to the tender mercies of his mirelurk queen killing plans, and somehow during that time Jolene manages to figure out and complete half the task that Deacon is at the Switchboard to do. The day before he leaves, Deacon is down in the Databanks with Jolene as she types back and forth with JH on the terminal. His decryption of the servers isn’t quite complete yet. It’s taking longer than Deacon figured it would, but that only emphasizes how much he could not have done this on his own.

It's so nice sapient computer to hack things for you!

“You’re pretty crafty, workin’ on this without them knowin’,” Deacon says with an approving smirk as he rolls over on a chair. The doors to the ‘banks are closed and have been since Tinker was moved to his room to recover. Jolene’s been out of sight for the last while, popping up just enough for no one to worry or question where she is. “JH spilled the beans before we set off, did he?”

“Sorta, but not really. He’s pretty tight-lipped about what the two of you talk about. Once I saw this place though, I knew that we needed access to it and Henry’s the only one to do it.” She shrugs, but the grin on her face belies the casual gesture. “So, do I get to know the specifics or what?”

“Sure. I need an access card for an old DIA cache. This is the only place to get one.”

“And Henry is the only one who can crack the encryption and encode one for you.”

“Bingo.”

“This is so _cool!_ ” she gushes, suddenly looking so young. He forgets most of the time that she is, and feels old in the presence of it. “I never thought I’d get to be apart of things like this; it’s like a comic come to life. Cracking encryptions, getting codes for treasure, secret underground bases, signs and countersigns.”

“Better than hangin’ out in Ticon?”

Her excitement dampens. “Well…Ticon’s home and there’s Henry and Parade.”

Deacon raises a teasing eyebrow. “Parade, huh?”

She blushes. “I-I mean, like…including everyone else. High Rise, and Callie, and Uncle, and…yeah.”

“Oh _sure._ And I go to Diamond City because of Ellie and Clockwork.”

“It’s not like that.”

“ _Yet._ ”

Jolene blushes again but doesn’t offer any further excuses. Deacon decides to have mercy on her and goes back to the subject at hand.

“So, he almost in or what? I’m growin’ old over here.” 

Jolene clacks on the keyboard, her flush refusing to drop away completely. How adorable. “95% or so. He can’t be entirely sure. Too many variables.” She turns back to Deacon. “What’s in this cache?”

“Power armour. _Pristine_ power armour. Pristine _X-01_ power armour.”

Her face furrows in confusion. “Uh…what?”

“Ya know, big metal tin can with hydraulics, powered by a fusion core, capable of withstanding a direct RPG. Ringin’ any bells?”

“No.”

“Well, what does The Institute need with power armour when they have Coursers? The rest of us plebeians need some Old-World tech to be invincible.”

“It’s powerful then. Could it take on a Courser?”

Deacon shrugs. “Maybe. If the Courser was spoilin’ for a fair fight, but power armour is too bulky to be quickly manoeuvred, and most are vulnerable around the fusion core, so a Courser would run circles around it. They’re meant to be used as shock troops, not infiltrators or attrition soldiers. Coursers have the unpleasant capability of being all three.”

Jolene nods and considers this. “You do too. I mean, not really the attrition part, but otherwise, yeah.”

“Ha! If only I were invincible or had the strength of a dozen men. I’m flattered by your assessment of my capabilities, but a guy half my height and weight almost kill me like three days ago. I’m definitely not anything even close to them.”

“That’s hardly a fair assessment. No one expects to get stabbed by a friend.”

“That’s the thing, though. I should’ve. Kinda my job.”

“If you spend your days expecting a stab in the back from a friend, how do you have any?”

“Right?” 

It’s supposed to be a joke, but clearly, he’s been too complacent these last few years. Spies don’t have friends. Not that it’s necessarily Tinker’s fault, but if he’d been more suspicious in general, not let his guard down, not consider himself friends with anyone, been an active spy rather than playing at a regular heavy, Tinker wouldn’t have been able to jump him. Especially not for whistling. What was that even about?

He can see Jolene gearing up for a reply when the terminal beeps and draws their attention. Saved by the bell. She quickly scans the text on the screen. “He’s finished decrypting the servers. I’m _dying_ to know what’s on them.”

“Should be interesting. Could I trade places with you, though? I want to make sure I get the swipe card before I leave. Then you can sift through the data to your heart’s content.”

“Sure.” Jolene wheels back from the terminal and Deacon rolls into her place. She slides back up beside him, peering closely over his shoulder as he types:

Everything you thought it would be? This is Deacon, by the by.

Entirely outdated? Yes, but there’s some experimental data that Carrington might be interested in, as well as numerous caches that may be of use.

What about my cache? Got codes for it?

I’m searching. It’s organized via serial numbers, not locations.

There’s a moment where the cursor sits idle on the screen, then,

I believe I’ve located it. What was the terminal password?

“Er…” Deacon has to think for a moment to recall it.

DECAFILLYAPPLEPIE

Yes, this is it. The secondary password is: DELTA45ZULU8GOLF93

Deacon scrounges for a pen and writes the password down on his forearm. He’ll probably remember it, but just in case.

That’ll deactivate the traps. Now, if you have a swipe card, I will program it for the door.

Okay, just a sec.

He wheels back from the terminal and heads for the caged area of the room. He should have thought to do this before JH was ready, but since he knew that there are blank swipe cards in the safe in this room, it didn’t occur to him to worry about having one. Tommy Whispers cracked the safe an age ago, but Tinker doesn’t use it for anything. He prefers chaos to safes, and honestly, Tinker’s workspace is probably the safest place to stash something for that reason. Good luck trying to find it again, though.

With the swipe card in hand, Deacon wheels back to the desk and inserts it into a slot on the side of the terminal. It registers and a moment later, JH is programming it. The code flying across the screen faster than he can read.

It’s complete. JH’s text tells them and the swipe card pops out of its slot. However please be careful when accessing the cache, Deacon. After 200 years of sitting idle with no maintenance, there is a great deal of errors in these servers. I can only imagine how bad it is for a system exposed to the elements for that same period of time.

I will be. Deacon types.

Don’t go alone. Even with power armour, the security measures are dangerous.

Deacon pauses as he reads that. Glory and MacCready will probably be in Quincy by the time he gets to 35 Court.

I’ll take Nick. Glory threatened me with death and dismemberment if I didn’t tell him about this latest…injury. Two birds, one stone.

As Jolene reads the part about Glory, she huffs a breath of laughter. “She seems like a dangerous woman to say no to.”

“You have no idea. Fortunately, she likes me.”

On the terminal, JH has typed: Good. Are you recovered?

Mostly. Can someone say, life-saving mutation? I’ll tell you more about it later. I’m sure we’ll have a nice long chat after I put the power armour to good use, but I’d better get back to the Clinic before Carrington drags me back. TTYL JH.

Be safe, Deacon.

When Carrington releases him, it’s reluctantly. He knows that Deacon is going to ignore his recommendation of resting for a week and jump right into another life-threatening situation. If Deacon didn’t know the Doctor better, he might be touched by the apparent sentiment. As it is, Deacon understands that it’s more about the potential waste of resources and life than caring specifically about him. Though, there’s likely a bit of that too. Carrington isn’t completely heartless. 

Deacon leaves the Switchboard in the early afternoon. Carrington managed to manipulate it so that he could only realistically make Ticon by supper, and Diamond City later than that. No power armour freeing today. Honestly, though, Deacon doesn’t mind that much. Any excuse to sleep in Nick’s bed is a good one in his books.

His habit of giving Augusta a wide berth slows his arrival to Diamond City considerably. It’s well after dark by the time he rolls up to the gates, just managing to squeak in before they’re closed for the night. Danny Sullivan is on the nightshift gate duty again and Deacon gives him a wave as he goes by. The confused look and half-hearted wave he gets in return tell him that not everyone in Diamond City knows that Rhett has a new face. 

Still, it’s probably time for a change. 

The market is quiet as he strolls through. Sounds of conversations and music from the Dugout Inn drift lazily in the distance. Takahashi is ever at his post and Deacon buys a bowl of noodles before continuing on.

With his hands full, Deacon uses the toe of his boot to knock on the door of the agency, his fingers starting to burn from the heat of the bowl. From the other side, he can hear the faint sounds of shuffling before Nick unlocks and pulls the door open. 

“Hey, handsome,” Deacon says with a smile and Nick shakes his head, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he steps aside for Deacon to slide in. He quickly sets the hot bowl down on Leslie’s desk. “It’s a good thing you’re so quick with that door, otherwise I’d have third-degree burns. I swear Tak heats that broth to 1000 degrees.”

“Boiling, at least,” Nick replies drolly and Deacon laughs.

“Miss me?” he asks and leans in for a kiss. Nick happily obliges.

“Always. But I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Decide against huntin’ a mirelurk queen?”

“Actually, haven’t made it back to Quincy yet. I…hit a bit of a snag.”

“Oh?” 

Deacon can see the way Nick assess him, checking for injuries, even though his tone is curious, not concerned. Deacon explains, in more detail that he would have preferred (Glory is likely to check up on him like he’s some wayward child—who’s the older one here?—and then smacks him again when she finds out that he left something out) about what happened in the last few days.

Nick touches him as if to reassure himself that Deacon’s okay. “You think this mutation will cause further problems?”

“Oh, probably.” Deacon shrugs. “Honestly, I’m surprised I got away this long without something weird happening on that front.”

Nick frowns at him a little, put off by his causal flippancy. Deacon continues before Nick has a chance to speak.

“It’s not like I can do anythin’ about it, anyway, so why worry? We all gotta die sometime. Besides, it may not do anything other than be a really cool way to heal wounds.”

“But Carrington doesn’t think so.” Nick’s still frowning and Deacon wishes he’d stop. He touches Nick’s face.

“Please stop looking at me like that.”

“Ya know, most people do whatever they can to avoid death.”

“That’s boring. And it’s not like I’m going to go swimming in a radiation sludge lake or anything.”

Nick sighs. “I know. I just want you to be safe.”

“Look, you find someone else capable of doing what I do for The Railroad, I will happily retire to an underground complex and build robots. I’ll even make up a kickass office space for you. On the upper level, obviously, because I can’t just let anyone into my lair.”

That gets Nick to smile, if only very slightly. “It’s a lair now, is it? And no, you won’t. You’ll just find something else to do.”

“Maybe,” Deacon hedges, not disagreeing with that assessment. He settles down at Leslie’s desk and pulls his bowl of noodles over. “So, what did you and JH talk about? My charming personality? He grill you on your suitability? ‘You’re not good enough for my pseudo-son/work-in-progress spearhead’.”

Nick frowns again, but this time it isn’t because of Deacon. “No. It was...” he trails off. “I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“What? He ask you to kill someone or something?” 

He means it as a joke. Well, mostly as a joke. 

“No. Sorta… No. I just…” he gives Deacon a long look and then shakes his head. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

Deacon pauses in shoving noodles into his mouth, surprised. “Oh God, how bad was it? Look, Nick, I’ll tell him to back off. Jeez, it doesn’t matter how many times I say he isn’t, I swear he thinks he’s my father.”

Nick waves him off. “I can handle Henry. It’s just…now’s not the time. Later, okay, kid? Can you trust me on this?”

“…Okay? I was serious though if you want me to tell JH to mind his own damn business, I will. He doesn’t get to dictate my life just ‘cause he saved it.”

Deacon’s dying to know what they talked about now. JH has a way of coming out of left field if you don’t understand how he thinks or draws conclusions and judging from Nick’s reaction, he probably did just that.

“I know, but I’m good. Not the first time I’ve had to deal with men like him.” Nick drops a kiss on the top of Deacon’s head and changes the subject. “I’m startin’ to think that the only reason you come around is for a free bed.”

“Pretty much, but you’re in it, so it’s definitely better than other free beds. It’s the top pick among them if you will. Numero uno.”

Nick chuckles.

“But like aside from the free bed, I’m here to ask for a hand.”

“With what?” Nick takes a seat in the client chair and folds his hand over his middle.

“With that power armour at 35 Court. JH doesn’t trust that there won’t be errors in the security protocols and frankly, neither do I. Thing is, I asked Glory to met Mac and head down to Quincy to wait for me without even thinking that I might need backup. So, feel like taking a trip down memory lane?”

“With you, kid? Anytime.”

Later that night, when Deacon is tucked snuggly into Nick’s side, half-asleep and feeling safer than he has in days, Nick asks,

“Do you fear death?” His voice is a whisper along Deacon’s temple and he’s too tired to even begin to wonder at the strangeness of the question.

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“ _But, do you?_ ” Nick asks again, stressing the words like he doesn’t trust Deacon’s response.

“I just said that I did,” Deacon replies, somewhat testily at having his sleep interrupted. Then he gives the question further thought. “I’m not frightened of death itself, like going to Hell or some stupid thing, if that’s what you mean.”

“Not really. No.”

There’s a long stretch of silence that passes and Deacon reluctantly wakes more fully as he thinks about what Nick has said.

“This is about JH, isn’t it?”

Nick sighs. “Sort of. Sorry. I’ll let you sleep.”

“Oh yeah, like I’ll just drop off to sleep now.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah. Mind just whirlin’ away at a million miles a second, isn’t it? You could just tell me what’s bothering you. A burden shared…”

Nick makes a negative sound. “Until I know what to think, I don’t wanna share. I trust you, Jack, I just need my own opinion first.”

Trust Nick to reassure him about the one thing that might make Deacon question his reluctance.

“Can’t decide if it’s a good thing or bad, right? That about sums JH up. He lives in that grey area of morality.”

“How do you decide where to fall?”

Deacon shrugs, pressing closer to Nick. “If it helps more than it hurts, it’s good. Of course, it’s sometimes hard to see that if the help isn’t immediate, and with JH the payoff is almost never immediate. That’s just not how he thinks.”

“I can see the good, or at least see the good _he_ thinks will come of it. I just don’t know if that outweighs the hurt that will accompany it. He doesn’t quite understand what he’s asking because he hasn’t had to live it.”

“Okay, I’m _dying_ to know what you two talked about. This droppin’ little hints is makin’ me crazy.”

“I’ll stop, then. Just sleep.”

“I was almost there until you started talkin’,” Deacon needles with no malice and tries to relax again, to find that peaceful, blank place. Nick strokes the length of his back in a soothing gesture and for all his complaints about his sleep being interrupted, he finds it again embarrassingly fast, but not before a whisper catches him just as he goes under.

_When Quincy falls, he arrives._

\- - - - -

In the morning, and the entire trek to 35 Court, Deacon is unsettled. There’s a feeling of impending doom following him around. Like a Courser is just around the next corner, or a super mutant with a Fat Man Launcher is going to appear on the roof of some low building and blow them away. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees a strange shadow lurking in the dark areas of the streets, but when he turns, there’s nothing there, though the feeling of being watched never goes away.

The third time he does it, Nick finally questions what he’s doing. 

“Nothing. Clearly. Because there’s nothin’. Right?” Deacon waves at the darkened doorway of an old shop.

Nick glances there, gazing lingering for a moment before he looks back at Deacon. “Nothin’,” he agrees. 

“And there’s been nothing. Every time, there’s _nothing._ ”

“Okay?”

Deacon stops and takes a deep breath, trying to get his bearings back. “I’m loosin’ it, apparently.”

“Is it this area?” Nick asks, moving to his side. They’re almost to Postal Square.

“I’m not going to burst into wild laughter if that’s what you mean. And no, it’s not the area. Not that I like this side of Boston, to begin with, but…” He trails off, feeling both silly and frantic as the sense of impending doom hangs over him like Damocles’ sword. “I saw something weird when Tinker jabbed me with that irradiated blood and I feel like it’s following me. Like something bad is coming.”

Nick glances around the buildings, scanning. “Courser?”

Deacon gives that serious thought then shakes his head. “No. Somethin’ just as bad, though. Something…” He looks sharply at Nick, a half a memory coalescing in his brain. “Quincy’s gonna fall.”

“What? How?” Nick touches his arm. “Kid?”

“I-I don’t know. Someone told me that, I think.” He gives a weak laugh. “Or maybe I’m just making a leap of logic since the Gunners are pressing closer these days and my radiation soaked brain can’t tell the difference.”

“Soon?” Nick’s grip tightens. He doesn’t say, _‘Don’t go,_ ’ or _‘Let’s go back home,’_ but Deacon can feel the words in the pressure of his fingertips.

Deacon opens his mouth to say that he has no idea, but there’s that shadow again out of the corner of his eye and he says, “Yes,” instead. Not knowing where that certainty has come from.

He half expects Nick to brush him off with a laugh and tell him he’s well and truly lost it. If their roles were reversed, Deacon would probably do just that, but Nick crowds him and whispers, “ _Jack,_ ” like he’s begging Deacon to be wrong. JH spooked him. Something he said to Nick is making him believe Deacon’s crazy-talk right now. 

He wishes he had something comforting to say in response to that plea, but Deacon has nothing. He just looks at Nick and prays he’s wrong and yet knows he isn’t.

“We get that power armour and you don’t get out of it. You hear me?” Nick demands lowly. “Not for _anything_. Promise me, Jack.”

“…Nick—”

Both of Nick’s hands camp down on his arms, almost painfully, cutting his words off. “ _Promise me._ ”

“Alright. I promise,” he agrees, but as usual, he can’t keep his mouth shut when there’s serious talk going on, “Like aside from the regular things like to eat or take a leak or…ya know,” and Nick looks like he’s going to shake Deacon, so he hastily adds, “but one hundred percent, fully armoured when in battle. No question. Will not engage unless in power armour. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 dollars.”

Nick gives a sharp nod, satisfied. Or as much as one can be when dealing with him. He releases Deacon and says, “Let’s get movin’.”

It doesn’t take much more than ten minutes after that for them to make it to the street that runs alongside 35 Court. They’re tense, silent minutes that seem to drag on forever, but aside from their own quite freaking out, nothing bad happens. In fact, it’s probably the smoothest trek Deacon’s had to 35 Court since he met Zimmer in the streets that first time and it does nothing to ease his trepidation. 

If anything, it makes it worse. 

At the building’s doors, Nick puts a hand out to stop Deacon from reaching for the latch. “There's voices speaking inside,” he says and pulls out his handgun, leaving the cigarette he lit around Postal Square to dangle from the corner of his mouth. 

Deacon draws his plasma pistol and tugs the latch. Then, suddenly, Nick is pushing him back and stepping in front of him just before the doors of 35 Court grind open. 

“Easy big guy,” Glory says, voice holding a hint of smile and Deacon peers around Nick’s shoulders. Her hands are held up in a lazy fashion. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Nick lowers his handgun and Deacon steps around him. “Mac and you? Really?”

“Really,” MacCready confirms, walking up behind Glory. “You _are_ still payin’ me, right? Didn’t seem like a good idea to leave you to deal with this alone. ‘Course, didn’t expect you’d bring company.” He gives Nick a once over before focusing back on Deacon.

“Nice to see,” Glory says with a genuine grin. “How’s things, Valentine?”

Nick shrugs and holsters his gun. “Can’t complain.”

“Yeah? This idiot tell you what happened?”

“Hey!” Deacon interjects as the doors close behind them. Both Glory and Nick ignore him.

“I heard all about it, Glory. Not real impressed with the situation, but he’s still alive, so…”

MacCready rolls his eyes. “Why am I not surprised to hear you almost died getting a stupid swipe card?”

“Uh…because the world’s out to get me?”

Nick gives him a sidelong look that says something along the lines of _‘Don’t joke about that.’_

“Anywho, the gangs all here, so let’s get this show on the road.” Deacon crosses the lobby to the elevators. “You two been waitin’ here long?” he asks as he presses the call button.

“Since yesterday,” Glory tells him and picks up her gauss rifle with envious ease from where it’s leaning against the railing of a small waiting area. “MacCready wasn’t comfortable leaving you to deal with this alone, and after I realized the trouble it might be, I wasn’t either.”

Deacon punches MacCready’s arm good-naturedly. “Aw, I knew you liked me.”

“Your caps, anyways,” Mac replies and a moment later the elevator dings and the doors slide open. Mac peers inside the car, looking skeptical. “Uh, that’s a tiny box for the four of us.”

“We used to cram eight in at a time at the precinct I worked at,” Nick says and crushes the embers out on his cigarette, adding when he gets a quizzical look from the group, “No one liked takin’ the stairs.”

“Eight?” MacCready asks skeptically and Deacon must admit, he is too.

“Bet you all were _real_ friendly by the end of that ride,” Glory says with a smirk.

“Sure,” Nick replies breezily. “Handies in the parking lot after work for the guys you liked best.”

Deacon snorts, Mac splutters a little in surprise (which to be fair, Nick doesn’t seem like the kind of person to joke about that kind of stuff—that’s Deacon’s influence on him and he’s ridiculously proud of it), Glory laughs, and Nick steps on the elevator. 

“‘Course, these days, I’m a little pickier,” Nick says, smirking as Deacon follows him into the car.

“You’d better be.”

MacCready rolls his eyes as he steps on the elevator, his composure recovered in a flash, and Glory follows him inside with a saccharine, “You two are just too cute!” and pinches Deacon’s cheek, setting her rifle’s butt down on the floor.

“Ow,” Deacon whines before punching the button for the 19th floor.

“Baby,” Mac says, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth and Deacon pretends to pout.

Nick’s hand settles on the back of his neck, conciliatory and comforting, but just who it’s supposed to comfort is anyone’s guess. In any case, it’s practically impossible to pretend to be mad, much less actually be mad, while Nick’s touching him, and Deacon gives up the ghost pretty quick. Nick’s hand doesn’t move, though. 

Between the four of them and the gauss rifle, there isn’t much space left in the elevator, and ride up is tight. How did those pre-war police officers ever get _eight_ people on one car?

They exit off at the 19th floor, and Deacon leads them to the section of collapsed ceiling that goes up to the 20th. At the terminal, Deacon punches in the password and the screen returns to the one it displayed last time, Welcome Agent and all. This time, however, Deacon types in the code that JH gave him, checking the faded writing on his forearm to make certain he remembered it correctly. The terminal process for moment before informing him that the Additional security measures are disabled.

MacCready peers over his shoulder. “So, this time we won’t have to play ‘follow the leader’?”

“That’s the hope. Though, we should still be careful. Something’s might not’ve gotten the message.”

When the doors to the roof open, Deacon crouches to check the laser tripwire there and finds the red-light dark. That’s an encouraging sign. As he heads out onto the roof, Deacon veers off toward the un-railed edge. He talked a big game to himself on the elevator ride up about how he could jump off a building in his sleep if he had too, but he gets about three feet from the edge and has to stop as his stomach threatens to climb up somewhere in the vicinity of his throat and lodge there. 

Neither MacCready or Glory have his same hesitation or fear and they walk right up to the edge, peering over to the ground below in Glory’s case, and across the rooftops in Mac’s. Nick stops beside him, arm brushing his, quietly reassuring.

“Is the street below clear?” Deacon asks, having to raise his voice over the wind that’s whooshing by this edge of the building. 

Glory shrugs. “For a Boston street, anyways,” and that doesn’t really answer the question. 

Nick touches him briefly before Deacon takes a breath to ask more specifically (it’s just a little wobbly being this close to the edge), indicating that he’ll look instead. He must have a better idea of what Deacon is driving at. Nick kneels at the edge of the roof and checks the ground, sweeping from left to right, looking for the best spot to land.

“I’d say jump here,” Nick tells him and makes a mark in the rusted tiles with his metal hand. “You’ll have to go about three feet out to clear the streetlight, but the street is level and clearest there.”

Deacon nods in acknowledgement and tries not to think about free falling 20 stories. He wouldn’t if he thought the stairs or the elevator would hold the weight of the power armour, but chances are that this little rooftop platform is the only area of the building that’s reinforced. They probably brought the armour in on a vertibird when they originally placed it here to keep it as secret as possible.

“You’re going to _jump?_ ” Glory asks, looking somewhere between incredulous and envious.

“Have to. It’s the only way to get the armour down.”

MacCready looks over the edge at the ground and then back at him. “It’ll handle that drop? I’ve only ever seen three-story drops.”

Deacon nods. “They were meant to withstand parachute drop-height so vertibirds wouldn’t have to get low over a battlefield. The Brotherhood just likes the flashiness and intimidating effect of dropping with a vertibird in clear view.”

The armour may easily handle the drop to street level, Deacon’s heart, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. 

“Assholes,” Mac mutters as he moves back from the edge. 

“You have to teach me to use one of these things, Dee,” Glory says, an excited gleam in her eyes, as she moves away too.

“Sure. We’ll have you jumpin’ off buildings in no time. Alright—” Deacon claps his hands together, “—Let’s get moving before I lose my nerve.” Then he backs away from the edge until he’s comfortable enough to turn his back on it and heads toward the power armour, watching for any pressure plates or tripwires. 

He’s like 80% sure they’re all disabled, but there’s no need to test the theory.

When they reach the security room holding the armour, Nick and Glory peer through the window on the side of it. 

“Never seen one like this,” Nick says, “It doesn’t look like the ones the military used.”

“I don’t think they got the chance to mass produce them before the bombs.” Deacon pulls the swipe card from the pocket of his jeans and slides it through the reader. The light flickers from red to greed and they can hear the locking mechanism click back. As the security doors open, Deacon continues, “I’ve never seen one like this either, just in a few technical drawings, but I’ve seen ones based on this design.”

Nick gives him a curious look but doesn’t press further in their current company. If they were alone, he’d probably ask a half-dozen different questions. "Well, don't let all that horsepower go to your head," and Deacon huffs a laugh.

When the security doors are fully open, the round platform the armour is on spins so that the back of it is facing toward them and the group holds their breath for a few heartbeats, waiting to see if anything goes wrong. However, the only sound on the roof, once the platform has hissed to a stop, is the distant sound of the wind howling by. Reassured by the silence, Deacon releases the latch protecting the fusion core slot and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds one already installed. He wouldn’t have known where to find one if the armour was without. 

Hopefully, Garrett’s stash of fusion cores had been found intact.

Deacon cranks the wheel to unseal the suit and drive the hydraulics that lifts the frame open. The interior of the frame is a hell of a lot more padded and protect than the power armour suits he trained in with The Brotherhood. They were full of unprotected metal bits that jabbed you in the side or tried to make it so you couldn’t have kids. The soldiers had some pretty creative ways of keeping from getting hurt, but Deacon will take _real_ padding over their jury-rigging any day. 

He flips the spring releases on the back of the footplates with the toe of his boot to reset them to the default height before unbuckling his tool belt and holster and handing them off to Nick along with his sunglasses. The suits are meant to be worn with as minimal gear as possible, and while he isn’t going to strip out of his steel-plated vest, his other bits of kit won’t fit inside. It probably won’t be terribly comfortable in jeans and his vest, but Fallon’s was all out of breathable body suits and he left his vault suit in the Capital. 

Steadying himself on the shoulder of the frame, Deacon steps on the footplates, not quite standing in the armour, but forcing the spring to depress as he pushes the plate down through a series of notches. He recalls that the fourth notch down from the default position was a good height for him, and he kicks the locking mechanism into place to prevent the footplates from depressing any further. With that settled, Deacon truly steps into the armour, checking that his head is in the right place to read the display and that his hands can reach the controls for the mechanical ones. He makes a few adjustments so that everything is within easy reach, before hitting the little button on the outside of the right palm rest to reseal the suit. 

Once closed, the suit comes to life. The display, firing before his face, giving readouts on radiation levels, fusion core life, hydraulic pressure levels, and air recycling rates. The clamps on the inside of the frame gently close over his body to provide him with greater control over the movement of the suit. The sounds from outside are now filtered in through a microphone and speaker system within the helmet, and the hissing wind sounds like a low drone of static in his ears. Deacon takes a deep breath in and then releases it, the warm of it puffing oddly against his face before it’s expelled out the helmet’s respirator. 

“Okay, I’m comin’ back,” Deacon says, his voice echoing back to him through the microphone. He waits a moment to make sure no one is standing in his path before stepping back and out of the room. 

The second he’s off the platform, a red light above the security room begins to flash and there’s a chorus of swears behind him. Deacon just gets the suit turned around when a high-pitched grinding noise filters in through the speakers in the helmet. All eyes shoot to the security door to the left of them. It’s clawing its way slowly open, before wedging itself open about a quarter of the way. 

The synthesized voice that emanated from within, makes Deacon’s blood run cold. 

“Sentry bot activation. Please wait for identification scan.”

Then, from the right, there’s another grinding noise as the other door tries to open and an assaultron tells them, as it starts to pry the doors open from where they’ve stopped, “Your presence is not authorized.” That voice breaks their frozen shock and has them rushing across the rooftop.

Somehow, Glory gets to the door first, even carrying that damn heavy rifle. She pries the handle of the door back, her fingers fly off of it with a _snap_ when the doors don’t open. “Shit!” she swears. “They’re fucking locked.”

The whole of the roof shakes as the sentry bot throws itself against the partially open door of its bay. “Identification scan failed. Commencing neutralization.”

Deacon waves Glory out of the way and uses the full force of the ramming power of the arm’s hydraulics and the weight of the armour to punch the door. All he gets is a perfect indention of his fist in the door. Then, the distinct sound of the assaultron’s main weapon powering up reaches them. Deacon turns to see half of the robot’s torso out of the door, frantically shoving and squirming to get completely out. 

He moves so that he’s between the rest of them and the assaultron, bracing for the impact of the focused laser. He needn’t have bothered. The suit’s weight more than makes up for the force of the impact, something he managed to forget in the interim. It feels like a century has passed since that life. The suit is hardly singed from the laser and Deacon can’t help the little triumphant grin. It’ll take about two minutes for the laser to be ready to fire again. 

However, his grin quickly disappears as the sentry bot’s next impact with the door buckles it outward significantly. Another hit or two, it’ll have space to poke out one of its weapons and then they’ll be fucked. Deacon heads back to the roof’s exit doors, meaning to give them another punch, but Nick stops him.

“Forget it, kid. That door’s reinforced steel. It’ll take too long to get through.”

“The hell I’m dying up here,” MacCready snaps. “Bash that door down!”

“Shut up and let me talk,” Nick growls. “We have to jump.”

“ _What?_ ” Mac, Deacon, and Glory all but shout.

Nick ignores their outburst and keeps talking. “You take Glory, and I’ll take MacCready.”

“Are you fucking kidding?!” Mac snarls.

“Can you survive that?” Deacon asks, very serious as the sentry bot informs them that, “Hostiles in area. Threat level: red.”

“Not to the ground, but there’s a building about five stories down, across the street. I can make that.”

“That’s more than _thirty feet_ from here—” Deacon’s protest is cut off by the squealing of steel behind them as the assaultron claws its way out of the doors and finally gets free. 

It charges them, bladed hand glinting ominously in the light. Glory growls and swears, taking a knee and lining up a shot that blows the head clean off the bot. It crumples, skidding across the tiles with the momentum of its run. When she turns back around, her face is a mask of anger for having to do that. If only all assaultron’s could be so agreeable as KL-E-0 in Goodneighbour.

“Deacon shut up,” Glory snaps as she turns around. “Valentine, you sure?” and Nick nods. “Then let’s move. We don’t have time to debate.” She marches to a spot about five feet from the edge and Deacon follows in her wake, angry at himself that he didn’t think to have the group stay on the other side of the door and scared that Nick won’t make the jump and both him and Mac will die.

If Nick has similar fears, they don’t show as he dashes to a place about ten feet from the edge and takes a knee. MacCready hesitates in moving, but the sentry bot’s doors are forced about half way open with its next impact and barrel of its minigun is almost through the opening. He runs to Nick’s side, cursing a blue streak and Nick picks him up piggyback style as though he doesn’t weigh anything at all. 

“If I die doing this, you colossal asshole,” Mac says, staring at Deacon, fear and anger equal in his voice. Nick pauses, giving him the time to finish speaking, “you go to Med-Tek Research and get this stuff called Prevent. Give it to Daisy in Goodneighbour. She’ll know what to do.”

Deacon opens his mouth to tell MacCready that he isn’t going to die, but the sentry bot slams the doors one more time and the telltale sound of a minigun spinning up is heard. He barely has enough time to dive between it and them before the bot fires on them, spraying 5mm rounds wildly around—without its head out the door, the sentry bot can’t pinpoint their location exactly. The bullets ping off the bulk of the armour harmlessly, and Deacon rolls his arms forward to protect the vulnerable areas between the plates. 

“Go!” Deacon shouts just as Nick takes off at a sprint. MacCready’s request burned into his brain, hoping, _praying_ that he doesn’t have to fulfill that last request. The moment the minigun stops firing, Deacon spins in place so he’s facing the edge and briefly considers, as Glory hops up unto his arms bridal style, that he won’t be in any condition to do so if Nick doesn’t make it. 

Time seems to slow as Nick leaps from the edge of the building, sailing out into the open air. Deacon throat closes in fear, frozen to the spot, helplessly watching. Glory shouts at him to get moving and his legs automatically reply, without conscious input from him. As Nick’s hat disappears out of sight, Deacon comes back to himself somewhat and corrects his course for the mark Nick left on the titles. 

Without a jetpack, the amour is just too heavy to jump any kind of distance, but if he leaps as best as he can, the forward momentum of his run should help him clear that street light Nick mentioned. 

The loud sound of his breathing is almost suffocating in the helmet, but it abruptly stops the moment Deacon jumps from the edge of the 35 Court’s roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I started a school course this fall and my free time has tanked because of it. I won't be able to stick to my two-week posting schedule, as evidenced by this posting. I'm still working like mad on this fic, it's just gonna take me a while longer between chapters now. Sorry!
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed this chapter. :D


	31. Whiskey on the shelf, you were so quiet there by yourself. Things were fine ‘til they took you down and open you up and passed you around.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the most high and palmy state of Rome,_   
>  _A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,_   
>  _The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead_   
>  _Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets._
> 
> _-Hamlet (1.1)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on a very special chapter of ISSH:
> 
> Deacon gets attacked in the Switchboard by Tinker Tom and has a weird vision. Nick freaks out at hearing Quincy will fall because of his previous conversation with JH, which we still don't know was about. And the gang goes on an adventure to get some power armour from the top of 35 Court. It doesn't go smoothly. 
> 
> _"...Time seems to slow as Nick leaps from the edge of the building, sailing out into the open air. Deacon throat closes in fear, frozen to the spot, helplessly watching. Glory shouts at him to get moving and his legs automatically reply, without conscious input from him. As Nick’s hat disappears out of sight, Deacon comes back to himself somewhat and corrects his course for the mark Nick left on the titles._
> 
> _Without a jetpack, the amour is just too heavy to jump any kind of distance, but if he leaps as best as he can, the forward momentum of his run should help him clear that street light Nick mentioned._
> 
> _The loud sound of his breathing is almost suffocating in the helmet, but it abruptly stops the moment Deacon jumps from the edge of the 35 Court’s roof."_

He probably shouldn’t have held his breath as he went over the edge of the building. 

Granted, it was a reflexive reaction, but his heart and stomach are fighting for the best position at the top of his throat, and Deacon can’t find the space to draw breath now that he needs to. That, more than the actual fall is scaring him. He knows that if he gets into real panic mode, he won’t be able to stick a landing, much less find the brain power to move the delicate functions of the metal hands in the proper timing to release Glory when they do get to the street. 

The wind is whisking past the power armour’s helmet and that sound is being filtered in through the speakers. It’s almost musical. He concentrates on that, first trying to whistle, and when that doesn’t work, humming to himself so that his focus is anywhere but the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Which he proves is a false fear by the actual act of humming.

It doesn’t help his rising panic that he can’t move. Can’t bring himself to focus on shifting his head upwards to see if Nick made it safely across the gap. Can’t shift his arms or flex his fingers or move his feet. Deacon wants to look up and follow the line of Nick’s jump, but he’s frozen. Mesmerized by the broken windows of the building across the street whipping by past his eyes. Yet, despite the speed of their movement, it feels like time is moving exceedingly slow. He _is_ falling, right? He did jump off the edge of 35 Court, didn’t he?

There’s the frightening possibility that this is a radiation fueled delusion and he’s still back in HQ on Carrington’s gurney, barely clinging to life. Or worse, nay brain-meltingly _horrific_ , he may still be trapped in Vault 112. It’d be just like Braun to let him believe he’s well and truly safe before destroying the illusion and dragging him under again. 

With all the thoughts pinging around in his head, Deacon’s not prepared in the slightest for the ground. Instinct forces him into a crouch to try and absorb the impact, but the sheer velocity he built in the fall drives him to one knee. And it isn’t until Glory bangs on the side of his helmet that Deacon remembers he’s clutching her in his arms and makes his brain work to release her. 

“Fuck!” she swears, voice as shaky as her legs. She braces once hand on the armour’s half-moon-shaped pauldrons. “ _Shit._ Goddamnit, Dee. It’s a good thing I’m more crush-proof than the average person because you might have broken bones otherwise.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles automatically, still trying to find space to breathe.

“Helluva ride, though. I’d almost ask you to do it again if I didn’t know you were terrified of heights.”

“I’m just _uncomfortable_ with heights. It’s not the same,” Deacon replies as his heart starts to settle back to where it belongs. His stomach is still feeling queasy, however.

“You tell yourself whatever you have to. Anyways, you good?” Glory gives him a hearty smack on his shoulder and even through the heavy metal pauldrons and frame, he feels it. “We should check on Valentine and MacCready.”

“Not going to vomit, so yeah, I guess.” Deacon makes to stand and finds that he can’t. _Shit._ He tries again, throwing a little more force behind the effort but the knee joint on his left suit leg resists. “Damnit. Of all the shitty things…”

“Did you break it?”

“No, but it’s been sitting unused for 200 years. It’s literally a little rusty. The joints have probably partially seized. It needs some TLC and some serious grease. Just, give me a second to get it working again.”

Glory gives the surrounding area a careful look. “Pretty vulnerable here, Dee.”

“I know.” Deacon rocks to the side, shifting the suit’s weight off the knee, hoping that will help coax it back to life.

From high above them, there’s an echoing boom that vibrates between the buildings. Glory shoots a look up at where they came from and grimly says, “That better be it missile launching itself into oblivion.”

The panic from before returns in a rush and clenches his guts when she says that. Nick and Mac are an easy target for that sentry bot if they don’t get to cover. Deacon shoves the feeling aside as best he can and focuses on getting the leg to move again. He’s useless to them in a suit that can’t move.

The electronics in this X-01 are advanced. State of the art, back in the day. Compared to The Brotherhood suits, where the majority of the more delicate circuitry is fried from knights and paladins bumbling around inside and not understanding how little voltage it takes to destroy a circuit board, it’s practically magic. The knights and paladins could easily keep the motor that controls the hydraulic pressure for the limbs running or the helmet lamp on, but heads-up displays were reserved for suits that never had to be rebuilt or for those few that were smart enough to let a scribe handle the electronics. 

So, when a situation like the one Deacon is currently in, happened to the asshole who couldn’t be bothered to properly maintain their suit, another soldier in power armour would have to yank the leg straight to free the joint. They didn’t have a sensor to read the increased resistance and to bump up the current to compensate and free the leg through the increased force of the hydraulics. This suit does. He just needs to make sure he isn’t rammy with it. Soon enough, Deacon gets the increase he needs and the knee joint squeals open. 

As he stands, careful not to let the freed joint close completely lest it seize again, Glory waves him over to the other side of the sidewalk. 

“I think this’ll lead up to them,” she says pointing to a weatherworn staircase inside a busted doorway, “but with these buildings, you never know.”

Deacon nods as best he in the bulky helmet. “Okay. You check on them and I’ll watch the street—”

From above, there’s the echoing whistle of a missile being launched and when Deacon’s head shoots up, he only just catches sight of the tail-end of it and the ensuing smoke trail. Cold settles in his stomach and Glory swears as she takes off up the stairs, his suit too big and heavy to follow. Deacon feels stupidly powerless in his nigh-on invincible power armour. He could get out, unplug the fusion core, and rush upstairs with Glory, but he doesn’t have his plasma pistol and he _stupidly_ promised Nick he wouldn’t get out in a fight. Damnit!

Deacon paces along the sidewalk, needing something to do to alleviate the building panic. There is another echoing whistle and Deacon stops, staring upward. The smoke trail clearly streaking from 35 Court to the other building. A crushing helplessness rises in him as the faint crack of Nick’s handgun echoes down, then a louder one as MacCready’s rifle fires. He takes little comfort in the fact they're both seemingly alive as there’s no guarantee that they’ll stay that way.

It feels like a century before Deacon hears Glory’s gauss rifle. Well, not actually the rifle itself. Much too quiet for that, but he hears the impact with the hard shell of the sentry bot. It makes a ringing noise like a bell being struck and Deacon’s stomach drops. The bot’s armour has been _reinforced._ Christ, could this day get any worse? The bullets from Nick and Mac’s guns don’t travel fast enough to make that noise loud enough to hear before. They probably just pinged off harmlessly.

It’s rare to find a sentry bot reinforced on this side of the world (he’s only ever seen them in service of The Enclave). It must have been meant for the front lines of the Great War before getting reassigned to the protect the armour Deacon is currently standing in. Civil service sentry bot’s had no need for that kind of protection.

There’s the bell-like ringing again as Glory fires again, and to himself, Deacon tells her to stop wasting ammo on it. She should be getting them out of there. There’s another smoke trail as a missile is fired and the whistling sound is a terrible accompaniment to the bell-like ringing. The missile must have been a little off target as it impacts low on the building, causing a deluge of debris to dislodge and fall. Deacon dashes to the other side of the street to get out of the path of the debris.

“For fucksakes, get down here,” Deacon growls up at them. If they would just get off the top of the building they’d be much less of a target.

Then, he hears a chorus of gunfire from them and feels a wave of frustration at the idea they’re _still_ trying to shoot the sentry bot. After a moment, it becomes clear that they’re bullets aren’t meant for the bot itself. Deacon moves out into the middle of the street for a better view of the edge building where the sentry bot’s position is crumbling under their attack. It’s hard to see exactly from this distance, but the falling sections of tile and mental panelling are making it abundantly clear as it starts raining rusted and crumbling pieces down onto the street. 

He moves back to the far side of the street, as far back from 35 Court as possible now that he’s got the gist of what they’re attempting to do. It’s not exactly going to solve the problem, just…move it. 

And move it does. Or fall, if you want to get technical. The sentry bot pitches forward as the crumbling building finally gives under its weight and the bot hurdles toward the ground. It’s not a bad idea to get it away from them, but he doesn’t have a weapon. Sure, the armour can take the 5mm rounds and missiles at point-blank range…for a time. Will it be long enough for him to protect the entrance that Glory used to dart up the stairs so that they don’t get torn to pieces getting away? That’s another question entirely. He’s got to try, in any case. Maybe he’ll get lucky and the bot will land on its head and solve his problem. 

Or not. 

The sentry bot lands with a ground-shaking and an impressive cloud of dust. As it settles, Deacon can see its landed on its side, the missile launcher crushed by its body weight and impact. The bot is unlikely able to right itself due to the damage on that side. Well, that could be considered a bit of luck. Of course, it probably didn’t have too many missiles left after launching most of them at Nick, Mac, and Glory, but its 5mm rounds are probably filled to bursting. 

“Story of my life,” Deacon mutters as he plants himself between the sentry bot and the door, bracing for impact with the robot’s bullets.

“Hostile detected. Threat level: red.”

“How hostile can I be without a weapon?” Deacon calls across the street. “And it’s not like you can use this armour, buddy. Just let me have it in service to America or The Enclave or whatever.”

“State Enclave service number for X-01 power armour use.”

Deacon blinks. He didn’t actually expect that to make a difference. “Er…” If only he had a Pip-Boy for a communications link to JH. “Would you believe President John Henry Eden? 00001?”

“Error. Number not recognized. Commencing threat elimination.”

In the time it takes for the minigun to spin up, Deacon manages a huff annoyance. Of course it doesn’t work. Why would it? 

The bullet spray is a little wide, catching him only on the right side of the armour. Maybe the bot’s targeting sensors were damaged in the fall. Under his breath Deacon counts the seconds that pass while the minigun fires. He gets to 40 before the ends of the minigun start to glow red from the heat build-up and the sentry bot ceases to fire. It’s about another 15 seconds before the barrels are cool enough for it to fire again. The bot goes through this cycle three times, successively denting the right side of the power armour each time before he hears Glory’s voice behind him.

“Where is the fucking thing?”

“Across the street and to my left,” Deacon shouts to be heard over the gunfire. “Just stick to the edge of the building and duck down the first alley you find. I’ll back up slowly and try to keep you guys covered.”

“Screw that. Just give me an angle on the thing. I’ve _so_ had it with this bot.”

“Forget it, Glory,” Nick says in response and Deacon’s knees practically go weak with relief at hearing his voice. “Damn thing’s reinforced. Might as well be shootin’ a BB gun.”

“Let’s just get the hell outta here,” adds Mac when the bot has stopped firing and thank God for that. Both the sentiment and the fact that MacCready’s still alive. They’ll have to have a talk about the Med-Tek thing later. 

Glory makes an annoyed sound. “ _Fine._ Fine. You first Valentine, then Mac. Me and Dee will bring up the rear.” That last word is lost in the noise of the minigun firing again, but Deacon gets the gist of it. 

The sound of their footsteps is lost in the noise of the gun, and when it stops firing to cool, Deacon can suddenly hear them again. The speakers in the helmet automatically adjust for loud noises, damping the sound so as not to deafen the user. As with most Brotherhood power armour, this sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t (and if it didn’t, you were walking around in the mobile equivalent of a sensory deprivation chamber—hand signals are a big part of their combat strategies) this X-01 armour is like finding non-irradiated pre-war BlamCo Mac and Cheese: rare and glorious.

Oh, the bells and whistles the Enclave power armour must have had.

Glory knocks on the back of the amour as his signal to move and he starts to take carefully wide steps backwards, making sure to keep the armour between them and the bullets. One flaw of the suit, of any power armour suit, but this one especially, is the inability to check behind yourself without fully turning to look. The mobility of the suit prevents it, as does the high pauldrons that sweep around the back. He’ll just have to trust someone to yank him into where they’ve veered off.

The further Deacon moves back from the sentry bot, the more and more of the armour that is caught in the spray. Then, as the minigun stops to cool for the umpteenth time, Glory grabs his arm and gives him a sharp tug. Hardly enough to move Deacon, but enough for him to feel the suit compensate slightly. He follows her path, down a small side alley that Nick and Mac have ducked down, and they are currently moving quickly away from them several paces ahead, scanning for any trouble that might decide to meet them at the other end.

Glory and he follow, the ominous synthesized voice of the sentry bot fading. He’ll have to mention to Randolph to avoid this area in the future and get them to throw up some Railsigns. They keep their pace constant and quick for about five blocks east after they exit the alley, before Nick and MacCready slow and stop. There’s a moment where they check their surrounds to make sure they’re alone and then Deacon hits the button to open the power armour. 

As he scrambles backward out of it, Nick say to him, “Kid, you promised—”

Deacon crushes Nick in a hug. “Shut up. Just _shut up._ ”

He feels Nick sigh half-heartedly before he wraps his arms around Deacon in return, just as tight. “I did say I could make it,” he says with a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Yeah, if you count going ass-over-teakettle in the landing,” MacCready huffs from behind Deacon, and Glory snorts.

Deacon pulls back enough to get a good look at Nick, his hands resting on Nick’s arms because he can’t quite let go just yet. The knees of Nick’s trousers are torn and dusty, the toes of his shoes have fresh scuffs, and when Nick holds out his hands with a self-depreciating smile, Deacon can see the scrapes in the synthetic flesh and scratches in the metal hand.

“He got the worst of it,” Nick says, tipping his head at Mac. “I’m the ass, he’s the teakettle.”

MacCready is covered in dust from head to toe, there’s a nasty gash of his chin that’s starting to clot, and evidence that his nose was bleeding not too long ago. Deacon gestures for Mac’s hands to survey the damage there, and he hands them over with an eye roll, shifting his rifle to rest in the crook of his arms. Both palms are scratched and bloody. It’s too bad he can’t handle a stim. 

“Don’t hug me,” Mac tells him as he pulls his hands back. “I survived that stupid plan. Let’s just get out of here and never find an excuse to do it again.”

“Can do.” Deacon heads back to the power armour, pausing before he climbs inside, peering around the open frame, “I’m glad you’re okay, Mac.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

They part ways with Nick near the Shamrock Taphouse and he heads back toward Diamond City as reluctantly as Deacon has ever seen. Honestly, he half expected Nick to join their party down to Quincy given how freaked out he was earlier, and though he clearly contemplated it, Deacon is quick to reassure him that he’ll be fine:

“What, between the power armour, Glory, Mac and an entire town of Minutemen, I’m about as safe as I could be. And you gotta start on Ellie’s case; Diamond City needs you. I don’t. That’s not to say that I don’t want you around, you know I do, but you’ve got fish to fry and so do I.”

“Yeah,” Nick agrees, something still off in his voice. “Don’t do anything stupid, kid.”

“Me? Rarely.”

Both Glory and MacCready snort, ruining the moment. Nick just gives him a look.

“Hey! I do smart things that end up stupid due to changing circumstances. It’s entirely out of my hands. I’m an innocent bystander. I swear.”

“Yeah right,” MacCready scoffs.

If Deacon was out of the suit, he’d flip Mac off. In lieu of that, he simply ignores the comment. “Nick, darling, light of my life, please don’t worry too much, okay? I’ll be back.”

“And I’ll be watching his back, Valentine,” Glory adds, “I’ll make sure he makes it back to Diamond City.”

“Sure. Just take my job why don’t you?” Mac says with mock indignation.

“Do it better, and I won’t have to,” she replies with a smirk.

Nick looks between the three of them and finally nods. Then, he draws his hat low and flicks up the collar of his coat in preparation to leave, and Deacon feels such a strong rush of affection for him in that moment that it almost takes his breath away. Damn sarcastic noir detective. How did he get so lucky? In a split-second decision, Deacon hops out of the power armour for a second time and catches Nick just as he turns back around to give him shit for getting out of the armour.

He doesn’t give Nick a chance to say anything as he darts in for a kiss, accidentally knocking Nick’s hat askew and ruining his noir look. He just can’t get the hang of kissing around a hat, but judging by Nick’s response, he doesn’t much care.

“For luck,” Deacon says when he pulls back. If they were alone he might have said, ‘I love you,’ instead, but he hopes that Nick hears the sentiment all the same. 

“Luck,” Nick agrees and rights his hat with one hand as the other curls briefly around the back of Deacon’s neck, silently sharing that same sentiment, before slipping away.

When Deacon climbs back into the power armour, he doesn’t feel much better about heading to Quincy, but at least he has Nick to come home to. Hell, if he’s dying in Quincy. Or The Castle. Or _anywhere,_ as long as he can help it.

\- - - - -

They arrive in Quincy early the next morning.

Deacon’s newly acquired power armour wins them quite a few friends among a group of caravans interested in the show of force that a suit of power amour represents. Appropriately, there’s no trouble on the road, but Deacon can’t help that watched feeling the whole way there. Not quite the same as what he felt in the Boston ruins, but he’d put caps on Gunner scouts are watching their progress the last stretch into town.

The three of them break off from the caravan group and head straight for The Minutemen headquarters in town, getting plenty of looks as they make their way through the streets. Deacon hopes that The Minutemen have some manner of scouts and know that they’re coming If they don’t, at the very least, the wave of murmurs rushing along in front of them is a warning of their approach. 

Dogmeat greets them in a bouncing hyper way the moment they stop in front of the door, and the Minuteman on duty raises his rifle slightly in surprise at the sight of the power armour. Deacon holds up his hands as MacCready takes a knee to baby talk Dogmeat.

“We come in peace, pal. Captain Garvey at home?”

The Minuteman opens his mouth to respond when a holler of, “Deacon?” comes from one of the windows above. They look up to see the disappearing flash of dark hair and a moment later, Lieutenant Davis bursts out of the main entrance. “Holly shit!” she says in an excited rush. “You outdid yourself! I mean, one power armour is fantastic, but two? The Cap is gonna flip. In a good way, I hope.” She tosses him a wink. “Come on, he’s down at the church with the Colonel and Garrett.”

They follow Davis as she weaves a path through town, Dogmeat close on her heels. “Good to see you again, Glory. Still finding lots of assholes to kill?”

“Less than I’d like these days. You?”

“We don’t see much action—not the nature of our work these days, but…there were some pesky raiders on my last run that we took care of. For the safety of The Commonwealth, you understand.” Davis shoots a grin back at them and both Glory and MacCready laugh. Deacon always did like Davis—the excited gung-ho energy a compliment Garvey’s calmer and more methodical approach. “And you must be the merc that’s got the Colonel’s feather’s ruffled,” she says to Mc. “As long as you shoot with us and not against us, you’re cool by me, just remember I’ve killed my fair share of merc assholes who had it coming.”

“And you remember that this sniper’s motto is ‘the last thing you never see’.”

The two of them look at one another for a second and Deacon wonders if he’s going to have to step between them, but Davis grins and so does McCready, so it’s all good. That makes two Minutemen Mac can stand; how nice.

“Wait, you look vaguely familiar,” Davis says, grin falling from her face. “Have I shot at you before?”

“Don’t think so. Wasn’t down south that much.”

“Huh. Weird. I swear I’ve seen you before.”

MacCready gives her a thorough once over. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen you too. Wonder where.”

“I’ll think of it. Eventually. Any case, if I didn’t shoot you last time, I guess you’re a good egg.”

“Mostly, anyway.”

Deacon smiles to himself, secure in the knowledge that they can’t see his face, and wonders how long it will take Davis or Mac to remember Fairline Hills Estate.

It doesn’t take long after that for them to reach the church Davis spoke of, and it’s clear from the _Repair_ sign outside, that it hasn’t been used as a place of worship since the bombs. Davis shoves open one of the large front doors and pulls it all the way open so that they’ll all fit through. Inside, four men look around from they’re having a disagreement. Three of them Deacon knows well, the last, Sturges, is someone he’s only heard spoken of. Cache, Herkimer’s house leader, has Sturges work on some of their non-weapon’s related repair work when she can afford it. 

As Garrett catches sight of the power armour, his hand goes for his rifle. He manages to abort the movement before actually drawing the weapon and eases somewhat when Davis tells them that Deacon secured another suit of power armour. The reaction is a little more visceral than the Minuteman guard on duty outside their HQ, and Deacon logs the reaction away for further study later. 

As he steps out of the power armour, Hollis says, “I should’ve guessed one wouldn’t have been enough for you,” eyeing the suit with distrust.

“Why have one, when you can have two? All the sugar and twice the caffeine!” Deacon replies with a smirking shrug. “Needs a little work, though.”

“Don’t look like it,” Sturges says as he strolls over to inspect it, “this is about the best-lookin' one I’ve ever seen. Almost has a brand-new sheen to it.”

“Needs some grease in its joints and probably new seals too, but yeah, it’s more or less brand-new. Give or take two centuries. There are a few dents from a sentry bot’s minigun, but they’ll buff right out.”

“Sentry bot?” Garvey questions with a slightly concerned note.

“Yeah. Stay away from 35 Court. Thing’s embedded in the sidewalk around there and still kickin’.”

“Do I even want to know?”

Deacon and MacCready both say, “No.”

“I think it’s a pretty good story,” Glory says. “After all, I saved all your asses.”

“Where would we be, without you, Glory?” Deacon replies.

“Fucked. That’s where.” She smirks and then looks at Garvey. “I’ll tell you all about if you want.”

“Uh, no. Thanks, but I’d rather not know. It’s enough knowing to avoid that area of Boston.”

“Well, fuck that,” Davis interjects, “I wanna hear the tale.”

“On your own time, Lieutenant,” Hollis tells her and she immediately straights up with a nod.

“Yes, Sir.”

Hollis turns to Deacon. “A word.”

“Sure.”

He follows Hollis out of the church doors, catching an apologetic look from Garvey before he’s completely out of the church. It’s not like Deacon didn’t expect something to come of his hasty declaration, and it certainly isn’t Garvey’s fault. Hollis wouldn’t be much of a leader if he let his authority be challenged and didn’t meet it with some resistance. Leaders should be willing to bend, but not break. 

“You expect to be General after all this?” Hollis challenges the instant they’ve gotten some distance from the church. There’s something hard in his voice. “You gonna play rope-a-dope with these kids, promising them faded glory if they put their lives on the line for you? Figured Preston knew better than to listen to a charlatan like you.”

Deacon tenses, immediately defensive. Hollis is uncomfortably close to the self-doubt that plays on a cheery track in Deacon’s head. 

“I haven’t promised anything but a chance to get glory back—if that’s what you want to call it. Dignity seems like a better word in my mind, though. You’re little more than town security these days, barely capable of handling Gunners.”

Hollis’ frown deepens and he flushes in anger. Deacon continues before he has a chance to speak.

“The Minutemen have fallen far from their height, so you bet those _kids_ are looking for some of that lost dignity. I can’t help it if I’m the only one ‘round here lookin’ to put you all back together again. Not quite all the King’s horses and men, but I’ll do in a pinch.”

“You _arrogant,_ slippery sonuvabitch—Well, you can be damn sure I won’t vote for you.”

“Why? ‘Cause no one would vote for you?” Deacon snarls back and then makes a frustrated noise at himself. He shouldn’t have said that, it’s not helping this situation. “This petty infighting is exactly why the Minutemen are no better than town guards. And just so we’re clear, I don’t want to be General. I want you to get your own shit together for the sake of The Commonwealth, but you’ve had ten years to do that and have made _zero_ progress, so I guess it's up to me. 

“Maybe I can help The Minutemen get back on their feet without having to lead them, but if it comes down to it, I won’t shirk the responsibility.”

“Says the man who doesn’t show his true face or give his real name. How can anyone possibly trust someone like _you?_ You’ll only do more harm than good. They’re foolish to believe anything you say.

Deacon is at a loss for words. He’s torn between being furious and crushed by the accuracy of the accusation. He isn’t trustworthy, or reliable, or honest, or stick around-y. He’s shirker, a runner, a dodger, and a liar of the worst kind. The very opposite of the things that The Minutemen stand for, believe in and want to represent in The Commonwealth again.

“With all due respect, Sir,” comes Garvey’s even baritone from behind them, “if it is a mistake, it’s mine to make. Same as it is for anyone who chooses to go on this mission. But I don’t believe it is. And I know that what’s being offered isn’t a panacea to miraculously fix all our problems, but it _is_ a chance to start a down a path we lost. If the ideals of The Minutemen mean anything to us, we’ve got to try.”

Hollis looks over Deacon’s shoulder to stare at Garvey, looking torn between shouting and pleading with the man. If he believes that Deacon will be a disaster for what’s left of The Minutemen, it’s his duty to everything he can to stop it, and Deacon feels his anger dissipate in face of that. That’s what a leader should do for their people and it’s not as if The Minutemen’s problems can be laid solely at Hollis’ feet. Theirs is a systemic problem that started long before they lost The Castle.

A second or so passes before Hollis’ schools his expression and straightens. “I gave you leave to do as you wished concerning The Castle, but now’s not the time to attempt to retake it. You’ve seen the reports about the Gunners. If we leave Quincy now, they’ll overrun it.”

“Quincy comes first,” Garvey agrees, perfectly respectful.

Hollis nods once in acceptance of that before turning on his heel and heading back toward the Minutemen’s headquarters. Garvey moves so he’s standing beside Deacon and they watch Hollis until he disappears around a corner. Deacon can’t quite bring himself to turn around and look at the eavesdroppers they undoubtedly have until he can manage an appropriate mask. Garvey is quiet; unerringly so.

“He’s right, ya know,” Deacon says lowly after a moment or two of silence. “I’m a shitty person to put this much faith in.”

Garvey shrugs, the edges of his heavy coat just catching the side of Deacon’s leg. “It’s my faith. I’ll put it where I want.”

That sounds like something Nick would say. Deacon sighs. “You’re funeral, pal.”

“I doubt it.”

Deacon doesn’t have a response to that, so he squares his shoulders and heads back to the church with a grin on his face and dives right into a conversation with Sturges about the sticky leg on the X-01 power armour. In true Deacon fashion, he ignores the looks he gets from those present and pretends he didn’t just have an argument with the current leader of the Minutemen. 

In his effort to ignore everything, Deacon gets legitimately drawn into helping Sturges get both suits of power armour up to spec (he’ll freely admit to preferring working on power armour than having to use it). Glory leaves soon after he returns with a quick word about being around if needed. Which is code for: “I’ll be at Herkimer.” Hopefully, any heavies that got the message about helping The Minutemen will be filing into town in the next couple of days. 

Garvey, Davis, and Dogmeat head back up to HQ to work on getting all their gear and weapons together for the assault on The Castle. They’ve agreed to leave, barring any major moves by the Gunners, in two days. Somehow, Deacon images that Hollis will make as many excuses and pricks on Garvey’s consciousness as he can to delay their leaving as long as possible. And while it’s clear that Gunners are pressing in on Quincy, Deacon can’t verify how likely they are to strike at the town. It seems foolish to attack Quincy. It’ll put the Gunners on The Commonwealth’s bad side and that’ll severely diminish their ability to function unimpeded. 

While Sturges and Deacon work, Garrett and MacCready talk in the background. Garrett pointing out the weak points on the power armour that a sniper could make use of. Though there hasn’t been any further mention of the dreaded B-word (Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, _Brotherhood_ ), he can feel their impending arrival hang over everything they’re doing here. They might be working on taking The Castle back, but he doubts Garrett would be talking about power armour weak points if Garvey hadn’t mentioned the larger goal. As Garrett talks, Sturges makes notes on which places to try and reinforce to prevent the damage Garrett is talking about. 

Over the next day and a half, Minutemen seem to hover around the church, or HQ, or the diner, anywhere that Deacon happens to be, to volunteer for The Castle mission or “anything else that needs to get done, Sir.” MacCready thinks it’s hilarious. Probably because it makes Deacon uncomfortable every time it happens, and he likes watching Deacon squirm. 

As uncomfortable as it is, it’s a distraction from the impending doom that hangs palpably over the town. At least it’s palpable to Deacon. The tingling sensation of being watched has followed from The Switchboard all the way south and sits on the back of his neck like an errant clothing tag. 

In the end, Hollis needn’t have worried about them leaving Quincy defenceless. They don’t get the chance.

It starts suddenly on their second night in town, sometime around 2 or 3 in the morning. Deacon and MacCready are woken from a dead sleep by the sound of an explosion and the crumpling _boom_ of a wall of bricks collapsing. For a moment afterward, there’s dead silence and as they both stare out at the blackness beyond the room’s only window, Deacon swears he imagined the sound. Then, it happens again, this time close enough to see the bright flash of the exploding RPG from the window and feel the shock wave shake the dust from the room’s cracks and crevasses. 

Neither of them wastes any time as they scramble out of bed and hastily dress.

MacCready is swearing a blue streak under his breath as he jumps into his jeans, but the cold dread and fear that’s settled in Deacon’s gut doesn’t leave him much room for anything other than focusing on not panicking. They don’t speak as they grab their kit and weapons, each buckling holsters and bandoliers as they rush out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the street.

There are townspeople standing just outside their doors, looking around, frightened and unsure. They don’t what to do and Deacon doesn’t know where to direct them. Surely The Minutemen will organize something quickly, but they’re probably just as off-kilter by this attack as Deacon and Mac are. 

Another RPG missile streaks over the rooftops above them and crashes into a building just out of sight. Several people scream, Deacon shouts for them to stay down, and MacCready twists around to glare at something behind them.

“They’re on the overpass,” he tells Deacon in a clipped tone. “We’re fucked.”

Deacon has to clamp down on an agreement to that and instead pulls MacCready along as he starts to run uptown, only letting go when he’s certain that Mac is following. They weave through the streets, the deafening sound of gunfire picking up in a sudden barrage behind them. They dive down the first available alley, a chorus of shouts and screams following them and reverberating across the buildings. Deacon is sick with the realization that those people standing in their doorways, confused and scared, are likely dead now. Christ, he hopes Vera and Dexter aren’t among them.

They dash down the alley, unable to stop and go back because getting to The Minutemen and helping organize a response is too important to stop for a few people. There are nearly two hundred people in town and if they aren’t organized, there won’t be any left in the morning. As they break out the other side of the alley, they have to veer to one side of the street to avoid another RPG explosion to their far right. Covering their heads with their hands as they run, Deacon can feel debris pelting the back of his vest, the vibration making its way through the steel plates. 

Gunfire continues to come from the south of town, but as they run north, toward Minutemen HQ, the sound doesn’t follow. He prays that’s because the Gunners (please don’t be The Institute, _please_ ) have met Minutemen resistance and not something worse. 

When they skid to a halt outside the entrance to HQ, it’s clear that the something worse Deacon imagined is happening in the south. The Minutemen, as a whole, are milling around uncoordinated, and looking as stupid and as lost as a brahmin herd. The sight of them takes every once of fear and panic that had been burbling in Deacon and turns it into white-hot rage. He doesn’t even have time to process that he’s speaking before his mouth is moving. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” he barks from the edge of the crowd and twenty or so eyes snap to him, but there’s no immediate answer. Fucking _useless…_ he doesn’t let himself finish that thought and points at the nearest Minuteman. “Take four others to the south side of town. People are being slaughtered because you aren’t doing your Goddamned job.” 

The young man he pointed at look like a molerat caught in a solar flare, but a woman steps up beside him and motions for another three to join her. She leads the five of them off at a run to the south. 

“Where’s Hollis?” Deacon demands and gets another bout of silence. He’s about had it with them. “Garvey?”

“Inside,” a quiet voice answers somewhere off to Deacon’s right.

“Well, go get him.” The Minutemen stare collectively at him as if they’ve all suddenly rooted to the spot like Harold in Oasis Grove. “ _Now,_ ” he growls and someone at the back darts inside. “Where’re the snipers?” he asks just as another explosion sounds behind them, close to where they’re standing like a bunch of fucking idiots out in the open, just waiting for an RPG to take them out.

Three hands tentatively raise, as if they aren’t sure if they have .50 cal rifles on their backs. 

“Mac, take them, fucking shoot that asshole with the launcher and get numbers on what we’re facing. 

“Got it,” MacCready replies and darts away. The three snipers have to shove their way out of the group in an effort to keep up with Mac’s retreating form. 

“Where’s Garrett?”

“Here!” he answers, pushing his way out of the main door and through the crowd.

“Get a suit and start pushing them back.”

“On it.” 

Deacon points at two Minutemen near the front of the dwindling group. “You two go with him and make sure Sturges gets outta there safe.” They nod and set off with Garret at a run. “Davis?”

“…uh, she’s inside with Captain Garvey,” someone says near the back. 

“What is this? A fucking convention? Quincy is under siege and you people are pissing around inside? For _fucksakes._ ” Deacon takes a moment to breathe and tries to reign in his temper. “Half of you start rounding up civilians. They aren’t safe. Bring them here and get them outta sight. The rest, start scouting north of town, beyond the wall, and make sure they aren’t trying to flank us.”

The remaining Minutemen scatter, looking better for having direction, and Deacon’s anger dampens. Garvey and Davis still haven’t made an appearance, nor has Hollis or the Minuteman who went to collect them. Perhaps most tellingly, Dogmeat is absent as well, and Deacon starts to worry.

He heads inside and up the stairs, looking for any kind of movement. The War Room is empty, the halls are empty, the whole place seems to be devoid of life. Distantly, Deacon can hear more explosions, sharper and more concentrated than RPG fire, probably frag grenades, and anger starts creeping back again. He calls out sharply, patience for this game of hide-and-seek vanishing in an instant.

“Up here, Deacon.”

Davis’ voice echoes down the hall and Deacon follows it back to the staircase. On the level above him, Davis standing, looking pale and grim in the lantern light. He takes the stairs three at a time. 

“Where’s Garvey and Hollis?” he demands before he has time to process the blood staining her shirt on her one shoulder. “What the hell happened? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she says with a dismissive wave. “Stim fixed the hole. The Cap’s down here.” Davis leads him down the hall to a room near the end. This part of the building is the Minutemen’s barracks, the few rooms they pass have the doors left half open and the beds are a tangled mess from what must have been as much a shock to them as it was to Deacon and MacCready.

Inside the far room, the Minuteman that was sent to fetch Garvey and Hollis is standing off to one side in the single occupancy room. Garvey is kneeling on the floor in from of the room’s bed, staring at some distant point that’s only visible to him. Dogmeat’s face is resting on one thigh, softly whining. A chill creeps up Deacon’s spine as he steps closer. 

Hollis is lying on the bed, still in his night clothes, looking like he hadn’t even been roused from sleep before someone slit his throat. There’s blood all around his pillow and blankets, and the one hand covered in it is resting on his chest. He must have tried to stop the bleeding before dying. Deacon closes his eyes and quietly swears. No wonder The Minutemen are so lost right now. 

“Who?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Clint Carson,” Davis growls. “Caught the coward, covered in blood, raiding the weapons store downstairs on my patrol. I thought he was injured, and the prick got me with a knife and fled.”

Silence follows Davis’ words, and the sounds of the battle raging outside grow louder. There isn’t time to mourn this loss right now. 

“Garvey,” Deacon says, “we gotta get out there.”

There’s no response.

Deacon puts a hand on Garvey’s shoulder. “Preston, Quincy first.”

That gets the Captain to look at him. (It’s a miracle that he remembered Garvey’s first name, to be honest, but every once and a while his memory pulls a Hail Mary, last-minute pass.) There’s a defeated look on his face that hardens slowly into resolve. Garvey nods once and then stands, Dogmeat immediately jumping upright. Deacon lets his hand drop from Garvey’s shoulder.

“Where?” Garvey asks as he turns from Hollis’ bed.

“Launcher on the overpass, probably snipers too. Mac took a few snipers to take care of them and get numbers.”

They start out of Hollis’ room, Deacon following Garvey, Davis, Dogmeat, and the Minuteman messenger following him. 

“Garrett’s suiting up. There’s a large group of them pouring in on the south side of town and he’s going to back up the Minutemen I sent over there—” they thunder down the stairs— “More are gathering civilians and the rest are making sure we aren’t being flanked to the north. I’m guessing Gunners, but God help us if it’s The Institute.”

Davis snorts. “As if they’d have Carson.”

“They’ll take anyone desperate enough for caps. They don’t discriminate when it comes to spies. University Point is proof enough of that.”

A grim silence follows Deacon’s words. 

“Where do you want me?” Garvey asks as they pause at the exit.

“Uh, aren’t I supposed to be askin’ you that? You’re the leader now.”

“Point me at a battle and I’ll keep our soldiers safe,” Garvey replies, ignoring Deacon’s call for him to take up the reins that Deacon snatched up in his anger.

He frowns at Garvey, but they don’t have time for an argument about that or Garvey’s use of ‘our soldiers’. “The group that went for the civilians headed east. They might have a hard time convincing some of them to abandon their homes for safety here. You’ll be more persuasive.”

“On it.” Garvey disappears out the door, heading off at a run in the direction Deacon indicated, Dogmeat on his heels.

“And me, Sir?” Davis says and Deacon glares at her. Goddamnit, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“North, out of town. Check in on the scouts out there and send someone back with a report. We might have to evacuate the town.”

Davis gives a sharp nod and dashes out the door. Deacon turns to the last Minuteman. “Follow me,” he says and the young man nods, looking vaguely ill. A prime example of how few battles The Minutemen see anymore. Town guards indeed.

They start toward the church, Deacon staying low and pulling out his knife. It doesn’t sound like the Gunners have made it this far north yet, but if any of them have, he’d rather not draw attention to their destination with a gunfight. Behind him, the Minuteman primes his laser musket and Deacon tells him not to fire unless Deacon gives the word.

“Just keep quiet and follow my lead.”

“Yes, Sir,” the kid says, and Deacon manages to hold in a sigh.

They move down the streets as quickly as possible, Deacon listening for boots scraping on the broken pavement or sounds of an approaching fight. He has no idea how far the fight in the south has moved, or how quickly the Gunners are approaching the center of town, and the last thing he wants to do is stumble into a battle. 

They make it about two blocks before a conversation is heard approaching on the still night air and Deacon ducks into an alcove, pulling the Minuteman with him. 

“Left or right?” a man asks, footsteps slowing. 

“North,” another man says, voice cracking like he’s fighting a cold.

“Okay, but left or right?”

“North, you idiot. That way.”

“Fuck off, man. All you had to say was right.”

“And if we were goin’ in the opposite direction, it woulda been left. Either way, it’s north. Use your fuckin’ brain why don’tcha?”

“Get fucked, Vance.”

Deacon rolls his eyes as the two of them dissolve into a name calling contest, at least it provides a distraction. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a stealth boy on him. There are a few kicking around in the Minutemen weapons storeroom that he meant to grab at one point or another, but it’s clearly too late now. He’ll have to settle for killing these Gunners the old-fashioned way. 

As he peers around the side of the alcove, Deacon catches sight of the two Gunners (and thank Christ for that confirmation) walking down the street, away from them and toward HQ. Probably scouts. Not very good at their job though. Deacon turns to the Minuteman following him.

“I’m going to go for the guy on the left,” he points as he whispers and the kid leans out to see, “When I get him, you fire on the other, okay?”

The kid nods, but he’s entirely too pale for Deacon’s liking. His grip his sure on his musket, though, and Deacon takes that as it is and nods once in acceptance of that. He checks around the building again, watching the two Gunners and making sure nothing has tipped them off, then he peels away from the alcove and set off after them. Blood beats in his ears as he moves, boots quiet on the ground. He doesn’t like stalking without the aid of a stealth boy, but needs must and it isn’t as if he’s forgotten how. It’s like slipping on an old t-shirt: familiar.

Comfortable even, but he doesn’t like to think about that.

The sounds of gunfire and shouts in the distance behind them (closing as far as he can tell, but far enough away to not immediately worry about), masks any noise that Deacon’s boots or kit make as he moves. Even if it doesn’t, the two Gunner’s continuing argument, which sounds like some asshole needs to get better at assignment rosters, easily covers his approach.

He pounces, grabbing the left Gunner by a fistful of shirt, yanking him backwards with a surprised yelp that disappears into a gurgle as Deacon draws his knife across the Gunner’s throat. Twisting to the side, Deacon draws the Gunner’s dying body with him to make way for the young Minuteman to make his shot, and the second Gunner turns on them. It might almost be a dance, the way they moved in tandem. 

“What the fuck?!” shouts the second Gunner, drawing on Deacon and the first Gunner. 

The weight of the man’s limp body is quickly getting to be too much for him to hold, but it offers some protection against the _very_ likely fire from the second Gunner’s laser rifle and he’d rather not drop the body until the kid has fired. _Anytime now_ he frantically thinks. 

A pair of heartbeats pass before the second Gunner chooses to not to shoot, but rather to bodily tackle Deacon and the dead Gunner. He’s off balance as it is, and with the added force, Deacon goes down in a heap, the dead Gunner crushing him as he knocks his head on the pavement, unable to get his hands free fast enough to cushion the blow. It leaves him dazed and the Gunner takes the opportunity to kick the dead man off Deacon and fires point blank at Deacon’s chest. 

The laser fire burns a hole in his vest, but it is absorbed by the steel plate underneath. It gets hot enough to burn, even through his dress shirt, and that helps bring his focus back. The plate keeps him alive long enough to kick the legs out from the Gunner, the surprise of not being dead working for him. ( _Right?_ his thinks wildly, _It’s a fucking shock to me too, pal._ ) The moment the Gunner hits the ground, Deacon is on him. 

There’s a bit of a fight, clawing and kicking, but the Gunner’s stunned from the fall and Deacon overwhelms him in the end. The arterial spray hits Deacon in the face and splatters across his chest. 

And that’s _exactly_ why he prefers to attack from behind. Less mess. 

Deacon takes a moment to gulp a couple deep breaths of air, before standing. He trips slightly when he tries to move away, his boot getting caught in the Gunner’s shirt. From the hazy light of the couple streetlights that do work, he can see the kid staring at him, wide-eyed and as white as a sheet. As he approaches, Deacon sheaths his knife and puts up his hands, fully aware he must look like the bogeyman. 

“Sorry! I’m sorry. I meant to…but I-I couldn’t, and I...I…” the kid babbles, stricken.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Deacon soothes. “I know. I know _exactly._ ”

The kid starts to shake like he actually had killed someone tonight, and the grim fact is he’ll have to, to survive it. “You…you almost died. I almost got you killed because I couldn’t…”

“But I didn’t. It’s okay. I’m a lot hardier than I look.” Deacon pauses, letting the Minuteman take a moment to get it together. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?”

“…Daniel Levitt. Private Levitt. Uh..Sir.”

“Danny, okay?”

The kid nods. 

“We’re goin’ to the church, Danny. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Let’s keep movin’.”

They make it to the church without any further encounters. The two Gunners Deacon killed were probably scouts and he hopes that their main force is tangled up with The Minutemen at their entrance point in the south. When he opens the door, he gives his name so that he does get shot, and inside one of the Minutemen that left with Garrett, lowers his musket. 

Only the X-01 is left, hooked to the hydraulic lift, as Sturges works on the leg that was giving Deacon trouble the day before. As Deacon moves to his side to check on the progress, Sturges gives him a grim look. 

“We got a problem,” he tells Deacon. 

“Aside from the fact that you’re still working on that damn leg?”

“Leg is fine. Just needed a new bearing and some grease. Had to take it apart though, and didn’t expect to have to put it back together under fire.” Sturges pulls on the torque wrench he’s holding until it clicks and then moves on to another bolt, crossways from the first. “The problem is that we’ve only got the one suit.”

The words don’t make sense. “Where’s Garrett?”

“He went with one’a the boys here to the fight. Couldn’t wait for me to be finished. He’s supposed to be back for the armour.”

“He’s not in the other one? Where is it?”

“That’s the problem, boss,” Sturges replies calmly as the torque wrench clicks again. “The other one was stolen. Right before the explosions started soundin’. I heard it leave, but didn’t see who.”

“ _Carson,_ ” Deacon growls, hands clenched. “This entire night has been a shitshow thanks to that asshole.”

“At least this one didn’t have a leg when he came by. Couldn’t take the better of the two. Don’t know how you’d fight against this one.” The torque wrench clicks and Sturges moves on to the last bolt. “Almost done if you want to take it instead.”

Deacon’s spared from answering when the doors of the church burst open. The three of them, excluding Sturges, turn on the doors, weapons drawn. Garrett, Glory, and a small group of Railroad agents pour into the church. Guns are lowered.

“It’s a fuckin’ mess out there, Dee,” Glory says, making a beeline for him. “Cache is wiping the safehouse and gathering supplies. She wants to leave ASAP for Dayton. Fucking Gunners.”

“You goin’ with them?”

“Shit, I don’t know. You guys need all the help you can get, but if they don’t make it…”

“Go with them.”

“I came here to help you and them,” she waves indistinctly at Garrett at the other Minutemen.

“You’ve got different priorities now.”

She barks a laugh. “Yeah. And you ended up leading this mess. I just have to escape with all agents intact.”

“So, who’s got the harder job here?” Deacon asks with a smirk.

“Right? Half of Herkimer’s agents haven’t seen actual combat.” She sighs. “I’m fucked. You’re fucked. We’re all _fucked._ ”

“Yep.” Deacon holds out a blood-crusted hand. “See you on the other side.”

Glory clasps it fiercely. “You better.”

“Davis is on the north side, outside the wall. Check in with her before you head back to Herkimer and make sure the way is clear.” Deacon drops his hand.

“Will do, and I’ll try to take out as many of those fuckers as I can on the way through.”

“Much appreciated.”

“If you see an asshole in power armour,” Garret adds, “put a few holes in him with that—” he nods to the gauss rifle, “—won’t you?”

Glory gives Deacon an incredulously look. “You are _so_ fucked.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She turns back to Garrett, “If I see him, he’s dead.”

After Glory and the Railroad agents disappear out the door, Sturges declares the power armour together and functional. Garrett looks to Deacon, questioning. He can hear Nick’s urgent promise in his head that he not fight in a battle without it on, but things have changed and he’s better in a fight without the bulk. 

“Take it,” Deacon tells him, “The plan hasn’t changed,” and Garrett nods.

Deacon waits for him to get in and settled before turning to the Minutemen he sent with Garrett originally. “Take Sturges back to HQ and help organize people coming in. You too, Danny.” Better that the kid keep some manner of innocence. He turns to Sturges, “You better gather anything you might need. I don’t know how long we’ll hold out in town.”

“Will do. A change of scenery might be nice,” Sturges replies, somehow keeping a positive outlook. “Tired of lookin’ at Gunner tags anyways.”

“Amen to that,” Deacon agrees and heads out. 

Out in the street, gunfire has increased but there haven’t any more RPG explosions for a while now, so Deacon assumes that MacCready did his job. The question now is where might he have decided to perch. Or better yet, how does Deacon make his presence known enough to get a message about numbers. He heads south through town, back the way he and Mac originally came when the fighting first broke out. The front is likely the answer to both those questions. 

The battle has moved east from where Deacon and Mac first heard the screams of people being attacked and he moves through the alleys to get closer to it. The sounds of gunfire are loud now, deafening even, interspersed with the sharp sizzle of laser fire. Gunners prefer energy weapons to conventional ones, but it seems that the grunts get the bullets and the more senior ‘officers’ get the better, more powerful, laser weapons. 

Lord help them if there’s more than one Gunner with a plasma weapon. 

There are bodies in the streets now, mostly civilians and nearly all of them shot in the back. It makes Deacon’s blood boil to see it. These people were trying to escape and were unarmed, there was no need to kill them. These assholes are little better than raiders, better equipped to be sure, but just as needlessly cruel. 

A few Gunner corpses are among the lot, and even fewer Minutemen, but the two he does come across are a huge blow. Five went to the front on his orders, and Deacon’s found two of them dead. 

They can’t successfully hold Quincy like this. There’s too few of them. Better that they let the Gunners take it and come back with an overwhelming force later to take it back. Perhaps after the Brotherhood problem has been resolved and the Institute put to work for the ‘Wealth. However, both of those things are eons away from this moment. 

Coming from the north side of town, it’s easy to find where the surviving Minutemen have holed up with Garrett stomping around and putting the beat down on a bunch of Gunners outside the town’s diner. Deacon heads around the side of the building and slips in through a side door, giving a quick call of warning so he doesn’t get shot. Inside, there’s more than just the remaining Minutemen, ten or so civilians are aiding the Minutemen’s defence, Dexter among them. Deacon hopes that means Vera is safe at HQ. 

As Deacon plants himself against an overturned tabled next to the woman who took charge when he directed the five Minutemen to the front, turns to him and says,

“There’s a lot of them, Sir. Fuckers.”

“So I’ve noticed, but we’re not sticking around.”

She gives him a questioning look right before a whizzing bullet distracts them.

“Just give me a moment to think,” Deacon says and considers their options as the battle rages on around him. 

If they retreat as they are, it will be haphazard and incomplete. Not everyone will get the message and the Gunners will prey upon them in that disorganization. So, first, they need to communicate. Next, they need something to slow the advance of the Gunners so they can get the remaining civilians out, something that doesn’t require a lot of Minutemen to stay behind and defend the escape. Traps then, and a sniper ambush points. He’ll have to raid the Minutemen store of weapons—has Glory left yet? The help of Herkimer’s agents would be invaluable. 

“Have you spoken to anyone else?” Deacon asks the Minuteman beside him.

She pulls out a beat-up portable radio that someone (probably Sturges) rigged to work with a fusion cell instead of batteries. “A few of us thought to grab one of these before we left HQ. Been keeping tabs on a couple groups with them.”

“That’s…utter perfect.” Deacon takes it from her. “How many?”

“Carlisle, one of the snipers, and Saint—he’s with the Captain.”

“So, two. Well, that’s better than none.”

“Also picked up some Gunner transmissions, so they can probably hear ours too.”

Deacon nods. “Noted.” He presses the call button and says, “Carlisle, come in.” 

There’s static for a moment, then,

“Here.”

“You with Mac? Yes or no. Don’t give a location.”

“No. He’s on a different…spot.”

“Can you get to him?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“I need to talk to him, Carlisle.”

“Okay, I’ll move to his location.”

“Don’t get killed.”

“Will do…uh, Sir?”

“Yep. Out.” He turns to the Minuteman. “I need to borrow this for a bit, but I’ll bring it back.”

“Keep it. It’ll do you more good than me.”

Deacon shakes his head. “No. I’ll get one from HQ, assuming there’s more?—“ she nods. “You’ll need this before the night is done. I’ll be back, hopefully with a concrete plan.” He gets up, ready to move out, but pauses. “Your name?”

“Sergeant Bear, Sir.”

Back out in the street, heading parallel with the fight, Deacon’s borrowed radio crackles.

“You better have a fuc— an idea of what to do here,” comes MacCready’s sharp tone.

“Actually, I do. Surprise, surprise, I know. Remember where that weirdo asked you ‘what time it is tomorrow’?”

“What? I…yeah. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I need you to meet me there. Like _now._ ”

“I can’t—ugh. _Fine._ Let me give some orders. Out.”

It doesn’t take Deacon long to skid to a halt outside the old Quincy Stoneworks building. He managed to avoid most of the fight in his short journey, Garrett proving to be a major distraction for just about every Gunner trying to get into Quincy. And as long as he keeps being that distraction, Deacon should be able to cobble together some kind of retreat plan.

Inside Quincy Stoneworks, it’s quiet. Hauntingly still, even. That’s the reason this building was chosen as Herkimer. It’s built entirely out of stone and almost completely intact. A surprise given that the bomb fell not too far from here. The stone dampens any sounds that might travel up from the basement, where Herkimer is set up, and the creepy air that settles on you upstairs has deterred anyone from going too far. 

The building has a reputation for being haunted and so the residents of Quincy stay away. Anyone that the more curious or foolhardy, are frightened away by perfectly placed traps and sound devices that mimic moaning and the distant sound of bombs exploding. They give the whole place the feel of being trapped in the moment the world ended two centuries ago. In the almost three decades Herkimer has been here, it’s worked pretty damn well. Even Deacon is creeped out by the atmosphere and he knows it’s all a rouse. 

He quickly heads to the back, the foot traffic clearly evident in the dust of the ground floor. Usually, you’d never find evidence that anyone lives here, but the time for secrecy is done. He hops down the stairs leading to the basement and notes that no agent is guarding the bottom door before bursting through it into the safehouse. 

Inside, there’s a flurry of activity. Agents are running left and right, destroying papers and holotapes in a burning barrel off to the left, others are clacking on terminal keyboards destroying information as best they can, but Deacon wouldn’t be surprised if Cache ordered the hard drives burnt as well. Only a few agents look at him as he goes by, trying to avoid a collision with anyone. He finds Glory near the back, quickly sifting through the safehouse’s weapons and throwing any that are junk to the side. 

“Glory!” Deacon calls, and she looks up, surprised.

“Deacon? What are you—”

“I have an idea,” he cuts in, “but I need some help executing it. I’m gonna try and get everyone out of town; there’s no way we’ll survive otherwise.”

Glory sets down the pipe rifle she was inspecting and gives him her full attention. “What do you need?”

He quickly explains his idea of setting up ambush points full of traps and possibly having a couple snipers waiting to pick off any Gunners that manage to survive. “I haven’t talked with Mac yet, so we’ll see about that, but there are mines and stuff in the Minutemen’s stores and I know Cache’s favourite hobby is trap making, so I thought we could work together to get out of Dodge.”

“I’ll talk with Cache if I can find her in this mess, and you get the Minutemen organized. Meet me outside in ten?”

Deacon nods. “Will do,” he replies and dashes back out of the basement, up the stairs, and back outside. Across the street, MacCready is waiting for him and looking annoyed to be on the ground during a battle. 

“Okay, so,” Deacon says as he darts across the street and explains, once again, his idea. As he talks, MacCready drags him into the alley, muttering about being out in the open and the snipers across the way. “Glory is talking with Cache, she’s a trap maker extraordinaire, and if you pick out some good spots with a clear view for a sniper to see on the north side of town, as far away from ambush points as possible, we might actually get out of here in one piece.”

MacCready sighs. “I was sorta hopin’ you’d decided to forget about The Minutemen, but alright. I’ll pick out a couple spots.”

“Thank you. What’re they’re numbers?”

“A lot. More than us. _Way_ more than us.”

Deacon nods. He figured. “Do you still have that radio?”

“Yeah.” Mac gestures to where the heavy thing is hanging off his belt.

“Good. Let me know when you’re done, and we’ll meet back here. And I suppose you know that the Gunners can hear our conversations?”

Mac gives him a dry look.

“Just checkin’. Jeez…”

\- - - - -

Preston arrives at HQ with the last group of civilians they were able to recover just as Deacon bursts out of the building with a handful of radios. 

“Perfect timing,” Deacon tells him, jogging over and pressing a radio into his hand. Got a plan to get out of here with the help of Herkimer’s agents, traps, and Garrett as our distraction,” and before Preston has a chance to question any of it, Deacon launches into a fast-paced explanation of his plan. 

Preston tries to follow as best he can, but his mind is only partially on the matter at hand. Most of it is still at Hollis’ bedside and he can’t seem to get away from that terrible moment when he found his mentor and friend dead. He’s been trying to keep himself as distracted as possible, but now that they’re out of immediate danger, his focus is lost. 

“I’m just going to see Davis to give her a radio and check on the status of the area outside of town. I’ll pull Sergeant Bear and those left from the front to aid you in getting everyone out.”

Preston blinks at Deacon, not quite understanding. Deacon’s face softens. 

“Did you hear anything I just said?” he asks quietly.

“Some. I…uh. Some. We’re leaving?” Preston doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“Yes. We’re going to be overrun. It’s only a matter of time.” Deacon touches his shoulder, jostling the radios in his hands to do so. The contact helps. It grounds him in the moment. “I need you to do this, Captain. You’re the only one that can. They trust you.” Deacon gives him a reassuring squeeze. “You can get them moving far quicker than I could.”

Preston nods. “Okay…okay. Quincy first, right?”

“Right,” Deacon agrees with a small smile. “Code for go is Oscar Mike. And no open comms, the Gunners can hear us.”

“Got it.”

Deacon drops his hand and re-juggles the radios before turning and heading out. A question forms in Preston’s head just before Deacon disappears into the dark. 

“Where to?”

“Only one place I can think of: Diamond City.”

The chaos of trying to wrangle over a hundred and fifty people with about eight or so Minutemen is an excellent distraction. Preston has to field complaints and concerns (“We have to leave.” “I know Quincy if your home, it’s mine too but we’re about to be overrun.” “It’s leave and survive or stay and die.”), as well as scared shouting and demands to go back home to get more things (“No. It’s not safe.” “I can’t send anyone with you, there aren’t enough of us.”). It feels like there’s always a dozen people talking to him at once. 

Preston selfishly wishes for Davis’ presence right now instead of Bear, she’d know how to help him handle himself and all these people. However, Bear is just as suited to dealing with the crowd as Davis, and he can’t put these people’s safety after his own comfort. Together, Bear, Preston and the remaining Minutemen, make sure that the crowd is covered as best as they can manage with so few. 

Eventually, with the help of others in the crowd, people stop badgering Preston, and they tensely wait for the signal to move, watching the south roads to make sure that no stray Gunners get the jump on them. Dogmeat will likely alert them to any movement before any of them see something. 

“Preston?”

He turns at the sound of Mama Murphey’s voice, “Yeah?”

The frail-looking woman slides up to him and sets a steadying hand on his arm. “I wish I had good news,” she says, sounding tired.

“That’d be nice,” he agrees, “but I suppose whatever it is, you’d better tell me.”

Mama Murphey pats his arm. “You’re a good man, Preston.” She pauses a moment, and then, “This is just the beginning of our problems. Things are muddled…the Sight…well, it isn’t clear about the outcome, but you’re important. What you do and say is important. Especially concerning that vault dweller of ours.”

“Who? Saint?” Preston’s pretty sure the Corporal came from Vault 81 a few years ago. 

“No. 101,” Mama Murphey replies with a small shake of her head. “Took me a while to figure it out. Not as sharp as I used to be. Didn’t know what the number meant until I saw one’a those little lunch boxes.” She laughs quietly, and Preston is as confused as ever. 

“Mama, who—”

His words are cut off by the crackling of the radio and Deacon’s voice, punctuated by popping gunfire in the background as he says, “Oscar Mike. Repeat, Oscar Mike.”

Preston immediately looks across the crowd to find Bear’s eyes. When they meet, they share a nod of confirmation. Then, Preston moves, gently trying to break from Mama Murphey so he can get everyone moving, but she clamps down on his arm with a strength that she didn’t seem to have a moment before and taps on the radio with a finger. 

“Your answer,” she says, smiling at him with her rotten teeth as if it’s all some great joke. Perhaps it is to her. Life must be a great joke if you can see what’s coming. 

It isn’t until she’s moved away from Preston, that he gets what she was driving at and he has a brief, _Oh,_ moment. It’s shoved to the back of his mind however, as they start moving everyone toward the town’s exit. They’ve got bigger mirelurks to fry right now. 

Things go smoothly as they head out of town and into the ruins of Old Quincy. They’re moving as quickly as they can, Preston leading the massive crowd and the other Minutemen flanking to make sure everyone stays on course. He’s not too worried about there being Gunners around this area since Davis was keeping it clear, but if Deacon’s plan doesn’t work (and honestly, he can’t even say he knows what Deacon’s plan is) then they’ll have a problem with Gunner’s overtaking them before they get too far. 

Behind them, there’s the sound of explosions going off rapidly one after another and then the loud crack of sniper rifles firing. The noise of the fight had died down somewhat before they started moving and the new, frantic pace of the explosions and gunfire has the crowd tensing with the change. He looks back and tries to encourage everyone to keep moving. 

If something goes wrong back there, the most important thing is for them to be as far away from Quincy as possible. Preston keeps pressing forward, leading them away, and hoping that they’ll follow him if he moves confidently enough. Though he doesn’t feel confident, he feels grief-stricken and foggy and like everything he ever held sacred and true is crumbling all around him. The only thing keeping him together is the promise that Quincy, or rather her people, come first, so Preston presses on. He takes a leaf from Deacon’s book of misdirection and masquerades and _pretends._

The front edge of the crowd makes it to the edge of Old Quincy, the road north stretching out before them when Preston notices Bear pressing through her way through the crowd. 

“We’ve got to move faster,” she says to him in a rushed and low tone. “They aren’t going to be able to hold them off for long.”

Preston nods, grim. He looks around at the crowd and raises his voice to be heard over the soft murmur of a hundred voices. “We’ve gotta pick up the pace! Others are buying time for our escape, but it won’t last long.” There’s a ripple of panic that goes through the crowd, fuel by the explosions scant minutes ago, but for now, it’s still controlled. They still can get the crowd moving in the right direction as long as they have that. “Head back to the rear, Sergeant, and make sure no one lags behind.”

Bear nods and disappears the way she came. Preston looks to those in the front of the crowd and gives a reassuring nod. 

Lee Long manages to pry himself from Marcy’s grasp and steps up beside Preston, stroking Dogmeat's fur as they walk in tandem. “Always wanted to see Diamond City,” the kid says, a hopeful look on his face and smile that had Preston cracking a small one of his own. 

“Nice place,” he agrees. “You think you can keep up with me?”

“You know it.”

“Yeah? We’ll see about that,” and Preston goes from a brisk walk into a job. Lee easily keeps pace with him and behind them, the rest of the crowd picks up the pace as well.

Things go well until they hit the old quarry. Preston thought they’d get away from Quincy mostly intact, and in a sense, they did, but that victory doesn’t last long. 

They’re ambushed as they crest the edge of the pit where it meets the side of the road. At first, it’s hard to tell where the gunfire is coming from. It’s dark and so far they’ve had only the light of the moon to guide them along, as Preston didn’t feel safe enough to light a lantern until they were farther from Quincy. The lack of light on their end might have helped keep their attackers from gaining too much of an advantage over them, but the crowd is large and provides a wealth of targets, even in the dark. 

The initial gunfire surprises more than alarms the crowd since it isn’t clear where it’s coming from. Then, someone shouts that the person next to them had been shot and chaos erupts from there. The crowd tries to scatter, and their disorganization only makes them easier to pick off. In a few scant seconds, the night is filled with steady gunfire and screams. It’s Preston’s worse nightmare realized. 

He grabs Lee’s hand and shouts to anyone who can hear him, “Follow me!” The dark makes it hard to navigate, but Preston is almost certain that there are old slabs of rock on either side of the quarry entrance that could provide some cover. Bear will have enough sense to do something similar and hopefully, divide their group to make them less of an overall target. 

Corporal Saint, Dogmeat, and a couple other Minutemen that made the divide with Preston weave up to the front where he is taking cover at the edge of a slab of rock. They're quiet as they stop just behind Preston. Everything is quiet. The gunfire has decreased to just a few random pops now that the crowd has dispersed and that tells Garvey that whoever is firing at them, doesn’t have much discipline in their ranks. If they did, the gunfire would have stopped completely as the attackers discussed a plan. 

The radio on his belt crackles. 

“Captain,” comes Bear’s distinctive, deep voice, “any ideas?”

“Not particularly, no,” Preston replies, sounding tired and annoyed at the same time. “We need a distraction, so we can regroup and get out of here.”

“Agreed. Reports said that a gang of raiders were holed up here, but we didn’t have the people to deal with them, and we certainly don’t now.”

Preston didn’t recall reading that report until Bear said it. He sighs quietly. He’s so tired of their ineffectiveness coming back to haunt them. 

“Where’s a power armour when you need one?” he asks, half-jokingly into the radio and behind him Saint whispers, “Right?”

Before Bear gets the chance to answer, another voice crackles on the radio, fainter than Bear and almost out of range.

“How’a ‘bout three snipers?”

“…MacCready?” Preston asks with some incredulity. He didn’t think the man would help without direction directly from Deacon. “You got a bead on us?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a sniper if I didn’t have a night-vision scope. I see you and the a-holes who’ve got you pinned.”

“There’s about twenty of them, Sir,” come Carlisle’s faint voice almost immediately after. 

“You need a distraction and we’re happy to supply it,” MacCready continues, “The faster you coordinate the better; they’re startin’ to advance on your position.”

“On your order, Sir,” Bear says after MacCready finishes speaking. 

Preston checks their surroundings, trying to gauge just how far they have to rush to get away from the quarry. Even with the moonlight, it’s hard to tell and the dark makes the familiar path strange. There are ominous shapes near the road and it takes him a moment to realize that they’re the bodies of the people killed in the ambush. Indecision crawls up his throat and seizes his brain. Any move he makes now will likely get more people killed. He doesn’t know what to do. 

“Capt’n?” Saint prompts lowly at his shoulder.

Preston opens his mouth to speak but no words come out. He’s paralyzed. Dogmeat whines at his elbow. The radio crackles again. 

“You’ve got about two minutes before we light ‘em up, Captain,” MacCready tells him. “They’re advancing quickly.”

The second's tick by, each more panicked than the last. Preston realizes that he’s got to make a decision, but his brain is stuck, like a bolt that won’t slide back into place for the neck shot, and he's hopelessly exposed, just waiting for their advisory to get the best of them. 

“Captain, the moment after MacCready fires to create a distraction,” come Davis’ voice over the radio, only marginally stronger than MacCready’s was a moment before, but sounding like a prayer to Preston, “if you move the crowd south and into the small smattering of trees just off the road, it’ll provide some cover while the rest of us move up behind you and finish off the raiders.”

Another voice follows Davis’ and the tight, panicky feeling in his chest starts to ease in hearing. 

“Garrett is _super_ eager to punch some raider in that pristine power armour and Glory is chomping at the bit here to do some damage, so just leave the clean up to us, Preston,” Deacon says, managing his usual level of cheerful darkness.

“Okay, okay,” Preston says to himself, gathering himself back from the brink, and focusing on the task at hand. Into the radio he tells Bear, “Davis’ plan seems like our best bet. If you move your group first, we’ll provide cover in addition to MacCready. When you’re clear, we’ll follow.”

“Copy,” is Bear’s only response, and a moment later a few other “Copy,”’s follow from MacCready, Davis, and Deacon.

Next, Preston addresses the crowd behind him. He’s certain they’ve been listening intently to the entire conversation, but for clarity’s sake and to help steady his still erratic heartbeat, he needs to make sure they’re all on the same page. No more people die on his watch. 

He barely has the entirety of the plan out of his mouth, before the first distant crack of sniper rifle goes off and chaos breaks out in the quarry. Everyone flinches in surprise. Then, the Minutemen are lining up along the rock as best they can to provide cover fire. Preston takes a moment to look at the few leaders among the civilians, like Sturges, Dexter, Mama Murphey, and Marcy, to try and convey some confidence of getting out of this alive, before heading to help with the cover fire.

The raiders are firing erratically at the direction they think the sniper shots are coming from. Their gunfire lighting them up for a brief second in a series of flickering lights that look like a damaged film reel playing on a drive-in screen. Some of the raiders fall with the precise shots of MacCready and the others, and that adds to their panic. When Preston and Minutemen with him fire on the raiders, they go for cover, and Preston prays that Bear and her group are hauling ass across the road and into the bush as fast as possible. 

\- - - - -

Somehow, _somehow_ they get away from the raiders in the quarry. They stumbled through the small grove and into the marshy river that Preston had forgotten was there in his desperation to make sure they all stayed together. As the gunfire continued behind them, the large group slogged through the shin-deep water until they hit the shore. 

From there, Preston lead them on through another grove of trees next to Hyde Park. It wasn’t until the gunfire stopped that Preston felt like they were safe enough to try for the road again. 

By the time they reach Jamaica Plains, sometime around dawn, Deacon, Garret, Davis, MacCready, Glory and a small group of Railroad agents, as well as the rest of the Minutemen have caught up with the larger, slower moving group. Before Preston catches sight of them, Dogmeat barks a couple times and runs back in forth along the edge of the crowd, pausing at the end and watching the fading darkness behind them in anticipation of their arrival.

There’s a moment when Davis appears with the few remaining Minutemen, looking tired and grimy, but grinning at him, that Preston almost hugs her he’s so relieved to see her alive. He manages to restrain himself in present company, but her simple, “Ditto,” is the only thing he needs to hear.

Deacon, Preston, Davis, MacCready, Sturges, Dexter, Vera, Marcy, and a few others have a brief discussion about the practicality of stopping in Jamaica Plains to rest for a bit before moving on. The ambush on the Gunners in Quincy worked fairly well, but it didn’t take long for them to regroup and in that time, Deacon and company made a mad dash to get out of town.

Deacon, MacCready, and Davis didn’t think they were still being followed by the Gunners, but the since the group was so large they were already moving at a snail’s pace, and if the Gunners decided to send out a small hunting party, any time they wasted standing still was an opportunity for them to catch up before they could get to the better cover of the Boston ruins. 

Marcy, Vera, Dexter, and Sturges point out that trying to keep pushing the group the way they were, was going to lead to some problems that would slow them down even more further down the line. People are hungry, thirsty, and tired. Making it this far was a miracle. If they kept pushing, people were going to start fainting or worse, start rebelling and going off on their own. Which would likely get them killed. 

Jamaica Plains still has a functioning water purifier from the time of The Deathclaws that had been maintained by passing caravans, though food is likely to be scarce. As places to have a short stay in, they could’ve done worse, and it’s going to be the last place to rest before they hit Andrew Station. That, more than anything, sealed the deal, and they decide to risk a few hours for a break.

None of the Minutemen, nor Deacon are comfortable with the idea of hanging around a place with so many ghosts but better that than dead. 

Still, Glory and her Railroad agents had the right idea of leaving as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm not dead! Just busy with school and constantly tired. My update schedule has apparently turned into Hornswaggler's. Oops. Anyways, this fic. Is. Getting. Finished. As God is my witness.


	32. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the Capital Wasteland? Now, there’s a tale.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,_   
>  _The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,_   
>  _That life, a very rebel to my will,_   
>  _May hang no longer on me._
> 
> _-Anthony and Cleopatra (4.9.13)_

The sun is fully up by the time they leave for Andrew Station, and it’s late evening when they arrive. Normally it doesn’t take that long to reach the old metro station, but the large group of hungry and tired civilians is moving ten times slower than any caravan. 

They have little money to buy food supplies with, but anyone who has a few caps to spare shares what they procured with others not as lucky, and the caravanners drop their prices once they hear that their shipments to Quincy have been permanently cancelled. 

Though there’s been no sign of any Gunner pursuit, the Minutemen take turns on watch for the night, and despite being bone weary, no one manages anything close to restful sleep. They likely won’t for a long time yet. 

In the morning, they gather themselves again and head off in the direction of Diamond City. The Boston ruins provide both cover and ambush opportunities, and the group to is too large to successfully defend with the small number of Minutemen and armed civilians they have, so they keep and close together as they can and move faster than they did yesterday, praying they don’t get caught up by raiders or super mutants. 

For the most part, Deacon and MacCready have a pretty good idea of where such hazards are currently camped out, and they take various paths to avoid getting into a fight.

In the end, the real problem they end up having is trying to prevent people from wandering off to scav for caps or food when an opportunity presents itself. They just can’t afford to split up and keep everyone protected. It’s too dangerous right now, and they’re too vulnerable. There will be plenty of opportunities for scaving once they are safely ensconced in Diamond City. 

It’s late afternoon when they finally arrive at the gates to the Great Green Jewel. Deacon doesn’t expect it to go smoothly, and so when the guards give them warry looks and bar them from entering the city, he isn’t surprised.

“What’s goin’ on here?” one of the guards ask, probably lead on watch right now. 

Deacon steps forward so it’s clear he speaks for the group. “Refugees from Quincy. It was attacked the night before last by Gunners and overwhelmed. We’re what’s left. I’d like to talk to your mayor.”

The guards look visibly surprised by the news about Quincy and share a look amongst themselves before the watch lead looks back at them and says, “You gotta name to go with that request?”

“Deacon.”

The lead nods, and tells the guard next to him to, “Inform Mayor Perkins about the situation at the gate.”

It doesn’t take long for Ellie to appear at the main gate; he didn’t think it would. Giving his name as Deacon instead of Rhett no doubt clued her into a very serious situation. She hones in on him at once, moving quickly to his position as her eyes scanning the crowd, taking in everything. The first thing she says when she reaches him is,

“Quincy was attacked?”

Deacon nods and Ellie’s face falls; it was already serious, but it appears she hoped that the information had been relayed wrong. 

“Nothing left?”

“Nothing that a group of defenceless people could defend. The Gunners overran it, Ellie. We never stood a chance.”

She touches his arm. “I’m glad you made it out okay. Nick, he said he was worried about…but, I didn’t think—well anyways, you’re okay.” She gives him a small smile and then looks at the mass of people around them. “I suppose we’d better do something about this, then. Are you all staying together, or do they have families in other settlements?”

Trust Ellie to think of something he didn’t even consider on their mad dash out of Quincy. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

“Some do,” Preston says from just behind Deacon and he almost jumps in surprise. Damn man is so quiet when he wants to be. “But we haven’t had much of a chance to discuss it, you understand.”

Ellie nods. “Of course. Well, we can scrounge up some temporary beds and I’m sure people in town will be willing to lend out a couch or two while you figure out where to go from here. If it ends up being more permanent…well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“With all due respect, Mayor,” Preston says, his words honestly reflecting the tone of his voice, “most of these people will want a settlement of their own. After all, if they wanted to live in Diamond City, they’d already be here.”

Ellie chuckles. “Fair enough. In any case, let's get everyone inside the Wall and down to the town hall stage. Hopefully, we can get everyone housed in somewhat of an orderly fashion.”

“We’ll get them inside, you worry about the other part,” Deacon says and shoos Ellie away when it looks like she might start giving orders to the Minutemen standing around them. Then he looks at Preston and raises an eyebrow in a joking _‘Can you believe her?’_ kind of way. He doesn’t get much in return other than a half-hearted shrug. And that’s exactly why he needs Nick to be his straight man. He’s so much funnier with the right kind of eye-rolling. There’s an art to it really, and Nick’s got it down to science. 

It takes several hours to everyone sorted into various temporary shelters. Most of it comes from the residents of Diamond City, who gladly give up spaces in their houses for the people of Quincy, the remaining few, like Vera, Dexter, and The Minutemen get lodging in a currently empty house in the West Stands that the Hawthornes’ were going to put up for rent in the near future but decided that the Minutemen’s need is greater for the moment. 

Once housing is settled, most of the former residents of Quincy shuffle off for something to eat and to sleep somewhat soundly for the first time in two days. A few stragglers hang around, like Minutemen who can’t seem to quite let their guards down, Garrett and his search for a place to stash the X-01 power armour, and Vera. Who peeled off with Sun after everything was set up with her and Dexter. Deacon imagines that it will be difficult to kick up too much fuss over ghoul _refugees,_ but there will be some, he has no doubt. 

It didn’t take much time for the whole of Diamond City to be alerted to the Quincy refugees once they started pouring into the market, and as such, Nick has been glued to Deacon’s side for the last while. Even as he tries to get the Minutemen disbanded enough to get some food and rest, avoids Mama Murphey like she’s got the friggin’ FEV plague, and tries to convince MacCready to hang around town for at least a couple of days before heading off the Goodneighbour for a better time. 

He manages to do all three, but it’s not his best effort, he knows. It’s hard to charmingly bullshit your way through something when he gets a huff and an eye-roll for every exaggeration. And honestly, it wouldn't be so bad if Nick would just _say_ something, but all he gets is monosyllable answers and dark looks when he chances a glance at Nick’s face. Frankly, Preston would be a better straight man at this point. 

It’s near midnight by the time Deacon decides he’s done about all he can to rustle the Minutemen and destroy his cover as Rhett (now they all think he’s Deacon the Minuteman, which is better than the truth he supposes) and calls it a night. Nick follows him as he winds through the streets to the agency. They make it to Arturo’s door before Deacon breaks. 

“So…is there a time frame I can expect for this whole ‘not talking to Deacon’ thing? 12 hours? 24? 36? I just need to know how long I’m expected to entertain myself while you brood.”

Deacon can feel Nick frown at his back, but he doesn’t say anything until he’s unlocked the door to the agency and they're both inside. 

“You promised, kid,” is all he says, managing an angry disappointment that hurts worse than any knife wound

So it immediately puts Deacon on the defensive.

“And I made it in good faith. How was I to know that a Minuteman would jump the aisle and join the Gunners, taking our other set of power armour with him?”

“You still had the other one. The one you weren’t supposed to get _out_ of. Remember?”

Deacon huffs and starts pulling off his tool and gun belts. “Funnily enough, I do actually remember that conversation.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Nick’s harsh tone bites at Deacon and he finds himself getting angry. 

“I made the right choice putting Garrett in that armour. He was exactly the distraction we needed, and I did what I do best: run around in the shadows.” Deacon tosses his tool belt on Leslie’s desk. “I know I promised, but I’m not going to apologize for using the resources at hand in the most efficient manner.”

“Don’t pull that pedantic bullshit on me, Jack—”

“There’s nothing pedantic about it, _Nick._ I didn’t decide to not use the power armour out of some desire to piss you off. It simply made more sense for Garrett to use it.”

“Made more sense to who? Garrett? Captain Garvey? Or just to _you?_ ” Nick holds himself ridged an arm’s length from Deacon. “Christ, kid, this isn’t that you made a decision, it’s that you never consider anyone else when you do.”

“And just who was I supposed to consider? You? All the way up here cozy and safe in Diamond City?” Deacon drops his gun belt on Leslie’s desk with an angry flourish. “The Minutemen were under my command, Preston was on the other side of town, and Garrett would’ve done whatever I said. The decision was mine alone to make.”

Nick shakes his head, furious. “You don’t get it. You _never_ get it, Jack. Goddamn it.” Nick bows his head and looks at the concrete, fists clenched. “How is that _he_ knows you better than I do?”

Deacon flushes cold, stomach dropping, and then suddenly hot as his anger returns in a rush. “What the _hell_ does JH have to do with this?”

“Because he described this _exact_ scenario and I told him it wouldn’t happen. Because you wouldn’t be so stupid or heroically insane as to do somethin’ like this, and yet here we are.” 

“Yeah, Nick, here we are. I’m the idiot and you’re the saviour. Bravo.” Deacon turns on his heel, meaning to leave and go to the Dugout, or if that walk doesn’t calm him enough, maybe even The Third Rail, when Nick’s angry, half-exclamation of,

“You _fuckin’…_ ” stops Deacon momentarily in his tracks, mildly surprised he’s managed to push Nick this far. “At the end of that scenario he described, you die. Do you get it yet, Jack? You _die._ Henry predicted your Goddamned death.”

Deacon reels around, throwing his hands out. “Of course he did! He’s what, 210 years old? Will outlive us all by a millennia or two? When he says I’ll die, he’s _right,_ because I will, one day, _die._ That astute observation doesn’t make him a fuckin’ crystal ball. JH being the giant _computer_ that he is, hates the idea of wasting a valuable resource, even to something as inevitable as death.”

“Is it?” Nick asks, voice suddenly and oddly quiet. “If he believes you’re a valuable resource, do you think he’ll let a little death stand in his way?”

“…What?” Deacon stares at Nick for a second, brain not quite processing his words. Then, “No. _No._ We are not going ‘round this circle again. Either you tell me what JH said to you or shut the hell up about it because I’ve had with this vague, half hinting b.s.”

Nick is quiet and after waiting a moment for some indication, Deacon turns again and heads for the door. He’s got the door swung wide open before Nick speaks.

“He thinks you should be a synth. Wants to make you one when you…eventually fall. His words.”

Deacon freezes, hand resting on the handle and one foot almost out the door. There’s silence for a long time, hanging in the air between them. In the distance, Deacon can hear Percy’s voice in the market talking to a customer. He closes the door. 

“…Make me or _ask_ me, because those are very different things.”

“I don’t know, kid. His words implied ask, but I don’t know if I’d trust that.”

Deacon starts shaking his head. “JH wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that to me. Not after everything.”

“You tryin’ to convince me or yourself?”

“ _You._ I don’t need convincing. JH has had wildly questionable morals in the past, and yeah, he lives in the grey area of morality more than not now, but he has _never_ treated me the way you think he will.” Deacon moves away from the door, anger leaving now that he can see the larger issue clearly, and touches Nick’s arm. “Can we stop fighting about this now? I’m sorry I made a promise I couldn’t keep just to try and fix a problem that I didn’t understand.”

“Well, I suppose I shoulda told you sooner, kid. I just—” Nick shakes his head, not sure how to put it into words. Deacon can see a dozen conflicting emotions cross his face. “I just don’t want you to end up like me,” _and I don’t trust JH to not to that to you._ the words hang in the air between them, but Deacon lets them slide. He’s doesn’t want to fight with Nick anymore and Nick isn’t about to believe Deacon’s assessment of JH after what clearly was a poor first impression. 

There’s still time to bring these two parts of his life together and nothing really works that well on the first try. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Nick.” Deacon steps closer, cupping Nick’s face in his hands. “I love you the way you are.”

Nick makes a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Wish I could say the same thing about myself.”

“Well, lucky for you I have somethin’ that might help. See, while you were lollygagging in town, doing pesky little _cases_ I’ve been wandering the ‘Wealth far and wide looking for holotapes. And not just any holotapes—”

“You have them?” Nick interrupts somewhat incredulously. “All of them?”

“Almost. Missin’ two, but I know where they are. They just happen to be kinda outta the way and I haven’t gotten the chance to wander that way.” Deacon’s hands go to the lapels on Nick’s trench coat. “I figure since I have a vacation comin’ up, we could spend a couple days and head out west to grab them. Then you’ll have a full set.”

“You were just gonna sit on this for how long?” Nick asks with an eyebrow raised, letting Deacon move the subject away from JH and synths.

“Well, if I knew when your birthday was…”

“Honestly, I’d rather not get that as a birthday present, if its all the same, kid.”

“Fair enough. Still, might be nice to have them all and you can decide when to move on it.”

“True,” Nick agrees as he slings an arm around Deacon’s waist, “but, see, I was thinkin’ that this vacation might be best if you didn’t get outta bed.”

“Really?” Deacon says, raising both his eyebrows and trying to keep a smirk off his face. “Not sure I need _that_ much sleep.”

“You will.”

And Deacon laughs.

\- - - - -

It ends up being closer to a month that Deacon is in Diamond City. He hadn’t planned on it being that long, but one week turned into two and so on. Really, if there was anyone to blame it's Ellie. She seems to have this wild idea that Deacon is like the leader of these displaced Minutemen and Quincy refugees or something, and it's apparently his job to field all the discussions of temporary housing, Minutemen training, and settlement location ideas along with Captain Garvey and Marcy Long. 

Arturo has been keeping the Railroad hierarchy abreast of the situation, so as of yet, Deacon hasn’t gotten a demand to return to the Switchboard for reassignment. It’s possible they’re happy to have him out of their hair for the time being or maybe Glory has been going to bat for him about the usefulness of having the Minutemen on their side and are willing to let him play at temporary and not-at-al-official General until something warrants pulling him away from Diamond City. 

During that month, Nick and Deacon do manage to find some time to head west out of Boston in search of the last two remaining holotapes. The rest are in storage at Ticonderoga so Nick won’t actually have the full set in his hands until Deacon pays a visit to his home away from home, but he hasn’t had a moment to himself in the last month for a trip like that and he’s not entirely sure what to say to JH when he does (and honestly, he probably won't mention it, because that's just easier than wading into what will probably be a weird discussion if JH ever decides to spring it on him).

He meant it when he said that he trusts JH. It didn’t start out like that, far from it, but over the last three years, he has come to truly trust JH. And oddly, Deacon didn’t even realize he come to believe that until he had to say so to Nick and found that the words were true. Of Course, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe JH is capable of doing that to someone, just that he won't do to that to Deacon, and perhaps that's the problem. Nick found the idea of doing that to anyone abhorrent, but especially Deacon. Whereas Deacon is more concerned that JH won’t do that to him, and less so that JH might do it to someone else. 

Not that he doesn't think it would be wrong, just that he believes he can logically talk JH out of it if it came to that. Just like he believed that if his and Autumn’s positions had been reversed, he could have talked Eden out of FEVing the whole of the Capital Wasteland. (Which is a scenario with a whole host of problems, not the least of which being that if he was raised within the Enclave, Deacon would probably have believed their BS just as willingly as he believed the vault BS. Basically, if they’d been switched, but Deacon still had all his principals and convictions born from his father and living in the Wasteland but while still being a member of the Enclave with enough power and influence to be in on the secret….yeah, it's convoluted, to say the least.)

“You’re quiet,” Nick notes as they walk through the warm May morning. 

“Just thinking,” Deacon replies, kicking a stone forward and watching it bounce along the broken pavement. 

“About?”

“The past. The present. Secrets of the Universe. What question has an answer of 42? Ya, know. The usual.”

“That last one is easy. 20 plus 22.”

Deacon chuckles. “Thank God you’re here Nick, I woulda been puzzlin' on that one _all_ day.”

“That’s what they pay me the big bucks for, kid. Solve the unsolvable.”

“Clearly. Speakin’ of which, how’s Ellie’s case shaping up?”

Nick shrugs. “Not great. Clearly, she’s on to somethin’, but no one’s talkin’ and I hate to risk talkin’ with Nitti until I got somethin’ a little more concrete. At the very least, I’ve managed to get the word around that I want to talk to anyone who gets extorted at the gates. Which was a task in of itself since I had to travel to Bunker Hill, Goodneighbour, and the late Quincy to do so.” He sighs. “Basically, I’ve got about as much as I’ve started with. Almost tempted to talk with the O’Malley sisters, but I doubt they’ll shed much light on the situation.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Deacon replies, “Unless it will?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Still not certain that this isn’t a Upperstander feud with another town or person and not something else.”

“By which you mean the Institute.”

“Don’t go jinxing it on me, kid.”

Deacon puts up his hands. “Forget I said anything, then.”

“As if I could forget anything you said.”

“Ah, the perils of having a photographic memory.”

Nick snorts. “You don’t know the half of it, kid.”

They hit an old Coast Guard building with a pier stretching out into the Charles River, and then from there, they go to the Natick Police station. The actual collecting of the tapes is pretty easy, aside from the ferals they find at both places, but on the way back to Diamond City, in the almost dusk of the late evening, Nick hears a super mutant patrol closing in on them and they have to scramble to find cover downwind from the group. 

As quickly and as quietly as they can, they move away from the super mutants, even in the quickly gathering dark. Just before Nick heard the mutants, they were discussing where to make camp for the night, and now they have to do the same thing, but farther off course than either would have liked to prevent getting spotted by the mutants. 

The sight of super mutants makes Deacon irrationally angry and when they finally find an abandoned house to make camp in, far from the super mutants, he tears apart furniture for a fire with more force than necessary, swearing under his breath and getting injured in his anger. Nick watches for a time, letting him vent until he has the table in as many pieces as he can manage without an axe. 

With the pieces strewed around him, Deacon finds he doesn’t really feel much better about the whole thing, so he takes one of the larger pieces and throws it at the wall. The hole it puts in the ancient drywall is satisfying, but ultimately useless. 

So, basically the perfect metaphor for everything that he does. 

“You done?” Nick asks mildly, smoking a cigarette from the couch he’s watched Deacon have his tantrum from. 

“Being angry? No. Tearing apart furniture? Yeah. I’m done that.” Deacon grabs a few of the smaller splinters and shoves them in the house’s wood stove with little care. 

“It’ll never light like that.”

“Do I look like I care?”

Nick sighs and gets up from the couch. “Go pace around or somethin’, kid. Let me handle this. Otherwise, you’re liable to freeze to death tonight.”

Deacon back up with a snort and sits on the couch Nick vacated. He wants to prove, childishly, that he doesn’t need to pace, but the illusion doesn’t last long and he’s up, stalking around the small living space and wishing for a baseball bat to smash a few more things with. He tucks his hands under his armpits to keep from destroying anything else, mildly ashamed he can’t seem to get a handle on his temper these days. Since they landed in Diamond City, his desire to scream at the general incompetence of the populace, of Garvey and Marcy and Arturo and Piper and Ellie and just fucking _everyone_ is almost more than he can keep a lid on. It scares him a little. 

He hasn’t been this close to being unhinged since his father died.

“So, this have somethin’ to do with the mutants or is just a delayed reaction to Quincy?” Nick asks as he expertly builds a small fire. 

“No. Yes. Both. _Fuck._ " Christ, he really wants to throw something and Deacon closes his eyes against the urge. 

“Whadda got against super mutants?” 

“Who doesn’t have something against super mutants? Big, green assholes.”

Nick closes the glass door on the stove and turns to look at Deacon, the orange of the flame casting one side of his face in shadows. “I didn’t ask what everyone else had against them. I asked what _you_ got against them.”

Deacon hunches in on himself slightly. “Do you know where they come from?”

“Figured it was some pre-war bullshit.”

“That’s about right. There this stuff called FEV—Forced Evolutionary Virus. A vault, Vault 87 in the Capital, performed experiments on the populace to try and create a super soldier. They failed for the most part because the subjects—the _people_ in that vault either died before the virus could take full effect or survived and were so violent that the staff killed them.”

“Jesus…”

“In the Capital, we destroyed Vault 87 and all sources of the FEV, and the Brotherhood purged their numbers to the last, since super mutants can't be born, they can only be made.” Deacon pauses in his pacing and looks across the small room at Nick. 

“…So, someone, somewhere is making them now?”

“And I _cannot_ find where that is.” Deacon starts pacing again. “I’ve checked all the vaults in this area. Nothing. I’ve raided all the military places I could find looking for clues as to a facility in this area that might have held the virus, but there’s nothing. Maybe the data was purged or corrupted beyond all reason or something. Perhaps now that JH has access to the Switchboard, he might find something I missed.” He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

There’s silence for a moment after Deacon stops speaking and his hands have clenched at his sides. He wants to be less…crazy right now, but it feels like he’s barely hanging on to his sanity at this moment. He was just fine a half hour ago and now this. God, why can’t he just go back to being normal? 

From the corner of his eye, Deacon catches Nick moving. He turns slightly to watch Nick pick up an old picture frame from the top of a side table that Deacon decided to not rip apart earlier since it didn’t seem like it would be easy enough to satisfy the urge to destroy something. Nick walks across the small room toying with the frame in his hands as if testing the weight of it before holding it out for Deacon to take. 

“We both know you want to, kid,” Nick says when Deacon doesn’t take the frame from his hand. “I won’t judge you for wanting to throw something else. Could hardly make it any worse in here.”

Deacon snorts and takes the frame from Nick. “Is that a challenge?”

Nick shrugs. “Still gotta sleep in here, but it’s your choice.”

Deacon looks at the frame in his hand and for a moment thinks he’s over the urge to throw something, or at the very least isn’t going to be that base and ridiculous in front of Nick. Then Nick says,

“Ya know, there’s a pretty obvious culprit your ignorin’ in all this. If I were a bettin’ man, I’d put money on the Institute,”

and the surge of anger that wells up at that _obvious_ fucking truth makes him hurl the frame at the wall as hard as he can. The fragile glass shatters and the old wood splinters on impact. Isn't it enough that they replace people and send Coursers to destroy and terrorize? Goddamnit!

Deacon seethes for a moment before attempting to gather some manner of composure back. “Look, if it’s all the same, let’s stop talking about the shit. I was fine before we ran into those muties, so let me try and get back to that place, okay?”

“No, you weren’t,” Nick replies. “You haven’t been fine since you got back from Quincy, and you shouldn’t be. I figured you needed a distraction from it all, but maybe that’s the problem. You haven’t dealt with any of it.”

“What’s there to deal with, Nick? This isn’t the first time I’ve seen mass slaughter or had to rally troops that are too incompetent to do it themselves. I didn’t bring the Gunners down on Quincy and Carson’s betrayal had nothing to do with me. I made the best of a bad situation. End of.”

“That why you always look like you’re about two seconds away from completely loosin’ it?” 

Deacon can’t help the surprised look that crosses his face at that.

“What? Thought you had it buttoned down enough that no one would notice? Kid, I notice _everything_. Especially when it comes to you, and you’re about two moronic comments from comin’ completely unglued.” Nick swipes a knickknack off the same side table that the picture frame came from and hands it to Deacon. “If this helps you deal, Jack, then throw it. I don’t care if you have to destroy every abandoned building from here to Diamond City but do _something_ before your anger consumes you.”

Deacon grips the porcelain figure tightly in his hand and though he wants to throw it, he doesn’t. “If I start, I won’t be able to stop.”

“So, don’t. Go until you can’t anymore.”

Deacon shakes his head. “I _can’t,_ ” he whispers frantically, “What if it ends up being like the Outcasts all over again? I can’t do that—I can’t be that…monster again.”

Nick touches his face. “You won’t. I’m here.”

Deacon trembles under that promise.

Part of him wants to let go like that, to just _free_ himself of the restraint that he’d shackled on himself since he woke from his vengeance-fueled killing spree all those years ago, but he’s so frightened of what that might mean. That person scares him, _the Lone Wanderer_ scares him. Scares more than any Courser or sentry bot or unreasonably tall building, scares him because there’s the distinct possibility that is the _real_ him and whatever bits of Jack or Deacon or Rhett or Dane or whatever name he lays claim to is just a pleasant, if slightly worn, mask _he_ wears to walk around unquestioned by the masses. 

The worst part is that no regular Waster ever wanted Jack, they all wanted the Lone Wanderer, and they were right to. Jack never solved anyone’s problems, he couldn’t even solve his _own_ damn problems. 

The Wanderer did. 

And just like that, his anger leaves him in a rush. Grief and despair take its place as easily as displaced water filling a sudden gap and the porcelain figure drops from his hand. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Nick gently removes his sunglasses, tucking them away, so he can brush Deacon’s tears away. That simple act of comfort completely unglues Deacon and suddenly he’s sobbing. 

Nick holds him and doesn’t say a thing. 

\- - - - -

He wakes some at some indeterminate time in the morning. Sunlight is streaming through the cracks in the boards on the windows and Deacon feels wrung out. Even after sleeping he’s exhausted and despondent and listening to Nick’s coolant pump is hardly the comfort it normally is. Deacon sighs and moves to stand from the couch, Nick handing him up without a word. 

They get ready to leave the house in silence. Deacon really doesn’t want to bother with conversation and Nick is content to let him keep his peace. They aren’t that far from Diamond City, no more than an hour’s walk, and it’s well into the morning when they start out; sunny skies and cheerfully chirping birds all around them and Deacon hates it. It’s as if the Commonwealth is mocking him with its chipperness. 

The only talking either of them do is about avoiding feral nests or raider camps, but other than that, the journey is made in silence. He’s not angry with Nick but Deacon just can’t find it in him to pretend to be cheerful and have a conversation that’s meaningless while also cowering from actually talking about something that matters. Nick simply stays quiet, as if he can hear the jumbled thoughts percolating away in Deacon’s brain. 

Then, outside Diamond City, no more than a block from the gates, the Wall rising to the left of them, Deacon realizes that they’re almost back and stops. He actually stumbles to a stop, pulling back so hard he surprises himself with the force of it. Nick stops as well, turning a questioning look at Deacon that morphs into concern as he moves to Deacon’s side. 

It’s then that Deacon realizes he’s shaking. 

He stares at his hands like they’re foreign objects. 

“Kid?”

“I…uh…” Deacon makes fists with hands to keep from the trembling. “I don’t think I can go back in there.”

“Okay. Do you want to go to Goodneighbour or…Ticon?” Nick is suddenly treating him like some wild animal he has to coax into coming closer to remove some barb or trap. The sad part is that it’s not that far from the truth. 

“Ticon,” Deacon immediately replies, grasping on to the idea like a drowning man.

“We’ll go there, then—”

“ _No,_ ” Deacon snaps, panicked. He takes a breath and tries again. “I can hardly deal with myself at the moment, and the idea of trying to deal with the two of you…” he trails off and Nick frowns at the unspoken words. “Don’t make me do that. Please.” 

For a moment, he doesn’t think that Nick will heed his request and just march them both to Ticon’s door, but then he sighs and gives a short nod. 

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is. I just—I just need…If I go back in there and come unglued…” Deacon crosses his arms, hugging himself. “Two days.”

Nick touches his arm. “Go for a week, you need some—” he stops talking when Deacon starts shaking his head. 

“Two days. That’s…that’s all I ever—I can’t hide forever.”

“Physically, anyways,” Nick replies with something like a smile and trying for a bit of humour, but Deacon doesn’t laugh. That’s a bit too pointed for him right now. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s funny and ironic considering everything, but I just can’t laugh at myself right now.”

Nick nods. “Please be careful,” and that’s more than just a ‘watch for raiders and monsters on the road’ request.

Deacon gives a nod of his own in return, and Nick leans in to kiss him gently on the cheek. Deacon sways into it a bit, trying to convey that he’s not pushing Nick away, he just can’t face Diamond City and everything inside right now. If he could, he’d take Nick with him, but the idea that JH and he will hang around Ticon in cold silence is about more than Deacon can handle right now.

Nick seems to understand a lot about Deacon without words, so he decides to trust in that insight this time and turns to go when Nick pulls back. 

\- - - - -

He scarcely remembers the walk, and he certainly doesn’t have the wherewithal to bother with circling the block more than once before he’s pushing open the boarded-up door to Ticonderoga’s reception area. It didn’t feel like he was being followed, and Deacon’s paranoia is pretty healthy, so in this one moment of weakness, he’s going to trust that and not triple check it in duplicate.

When he makes it up to the main floor of the safehouse, the elevator doors open to a full house. Everyone has crowded around, looking anxious and relieved in the same breath. Deacon hesitates a moment before stepping out of the elevator; it’s a relief that he doesn’t have to talk about Quincy falling, clearly, they already know, but he hopes that he isn’t about to get delicate “Sorry, Dee”s. That’s not what he wants. 

High Rise steps forward first. “Hey, man. We heard. About Quincy.”

“Yeah,” Deacon replies, voice monotone as he stands there limply.

“Oh, _Dee,_ ” Parade sighs somewhere to the right of him and as if that’s what the group had been waiting for, a dozen hands reach for him at once and he’s pulled into a massive hug.

He doesn’t break down the way he did with Nick. Doesn’t quite trust these people with that sort of vulnerability, even if he does trust them with his life, but he does let them pull him toward the living area couches. He pulls off his gear when High Rise tells him to take it off and accepts the blanket from Jolene, and later the bowl of mac and cheese from Codsworth. He lets the conversation of Ticon wash over him while he’s sandwiched between HR and Parade on the couch. It’s about as safe as he feels outside of a vault or the agency.

Eventually, Uncle takes the empty bowl from his hands and Drummer Boy gives him a glass of purified water, and Parade offers some of her Jet if he wants to take the edge off, but Deacon shakes his head. After a time, conversation falls off when they’ve updated Deacon on the goings on, and cards are pulled out. He doesn’t play. Deacon falls asleep sometime around the fifth game.

When he wakes again, he’s alone on the couch and it’s dark. At first, he’s not quite sure about that and he pulls his off sunglasses to double check, but when the room doesn’t lighten significantly, Deacon has to accept that he’s slept the afternoon and evening away. Despite that, he still feels tired, and if he wasn’t also hungry, he’d probably just go back to sleep. With a quiet sight, Deacon swings himself off the couch; he hates that ‘dealing with shit’ has to be so exhausting.

“They considered waking you for supper, but you didn’t stir at their noise and High Rise decided to leave you sleep,” JH says lowly when Deacon has turned on the kitchen overhead light.

“Thanks, I guess,” he replies as he browses the fridge for leftovers. He spots some casserole of indeterminate make and takes the small dish out to warm up.

“Have you not been sleeping?”

Deacon shrugs. “Sorta. Nick’s been keeping me busy.”

“Ah,” JH says with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“And…I think trying to keep from exploding in anger on a semi-daily basis has been kinda counteracting the sleep I do get.” Deacon tosses the casserole mess into a pot warming on the burner and adds, “Maybe. Who can say for sure, really?”

“Because of Quincy?”

“I guess. That’s what Nick thinks, anyways.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

JH makes a noise of disbelief but doesn’t push, apparently content to let Deacon answer truthfully in his own time. When the casserole is warmed through, Deacon dumps it back in the dish it came from and heads back to the couch with a Nuka Cola. He arranges himself under the blanket again before eating the casserole in a few giant mouthfuls. It’s hardly pretty, but he doesn’t much care.

When he’s finished, Deacon set the dish down on the edge of the hubflower planter/coffee table in front of him and cracks the Nuka Cola open on the edge of the table. The metal edge of the small table face is worn almost round from hundreds of bottles opened the same way. After the first sip of the soda, Deacon says somewhat suddenly,

“I don’t want to be the Lone Wanderer.”

“Well, I’m afraid that vertibird has flown.”

Of all the answers Deacon imagined JH might’ve had, that wasn’t one. He frowns.

“So, what? Too bad, so sad? It’s my life. I choose.”

“If you want to choose to cripple yourself, then yes, you have a choice. If you want to be practical about it, grow up and stop accepting your father’s misguided view of the world.”  
Deacon stares agape at the JH’s camera, feeling stung and surprised. It takes a moment for him to find his footing.

“Don’t talk about my father like that,” he snaps.

“And why not? Because it’s in poor taste to speak ill of the dead—though they hardly care what we think one way or another. Or perhaps because that pedestal you have him on is weak and all it needs is a good _push_ to topple.”

“ _Stop._ ”

“No. If what we plan is to work, you must come to terms with the fact that you have two views of the world and only one is valid in the Wasteland,” JH says with some force, “What James taught you to believe about the world, what he believed was true, made a martyr of him. He was a fool—”

“How _dare_ you—”

“How dare I say aloud the things you already think? Should we examine the choices he made that last day? Refusing Autumn the code for the purifier was idiotic, especially with the very clear threat of death. There was no need to die, he could have given the Colonel the code and returned with the Brotherhood at his back, he could have agreed to work with the Enclave and internally subverted us, he could have agreed to join Autumn against me, he could have chosen a dozen other possibilities that did not leave him dead in that chamber, but James didn’t believe in living to fight another day.”

“Dying for what you believe in isn’t wrong, or foolish, or idiotic. And if you had any _shred_ of humanity, you’d know that,” Deacon seethes, knuckles white on the Nuka Cola bottle.

“Indeed? Remind me then, which one of us left you alone in this world?”

“ _Fuck_ you, Eden.”

JH has the audacity to laugh. “You already know I’m right, John. The Lone Wanderer is just a convenient name you’ve taken to represent all the things you learned about the world outside the vault, all the things that don’t agree with James’ skewed ideas of the world.”

“The Lone Wanderer is a _monster._ I don’t want to be anything like him.”

“No. The only monster is the shellacked memory of your father that keeps you at odds with yourself. The Wanderer lives in the imperfect world of the Wasteland, the world we all live in, and as such is an imperfect being. He does good and ill, just as we all do.” JH speaks of the Wanderer kindly, as if he’s a beloved friend, and in the next moment JH’s voice is harsh and critical, “You, John, are still living as though you are 19 and in the vault—an isolated place where every little mistake was compounded tenfold by the scarcity of freedom and the only ultimate good was to die in service of it.”

Deacon slams his Nuka Cola bottle down on the coffee table, heedless of the noise that it makes and stands, barely conscious of the real possibility that they’ll wake the entire safehouse if they keep arguing like this.

“You, _of all people,_ have no right to be critical of the vault, my upbringing, or my father, when you, yourself, employed similar bullshit tactics in the Enclave.”

“Good to see we’re starting to make progress on this; shame that you have to angry to think clearly on the issue,” JH replies, exceedingly calm and Deacon wants to hit him. “And I am perfectly qualified to talk about this because, yes, in that former life, I did exactly the same thing. I won’t deny that.

“I have little doubt that James did not start out his tenure in the vault with the same views he had when he left it, but that’s what happens when you live in isolation. All you need is one rational sounding voice to repeat the same thing over and over and over again until one day you wake up believing the lie.

“In James’ case, the rational voice was his own because the lie he was selling was not to himself, John, but to you. And he said it so many times to you that he ended up believing it himself. Had Autumn pulled his coup 19 years before you were born, I have no doubt that James would have chosen to do one of the things I outlined before; however, living that long in the isolation of the vault skewed his view of the world. He mistakenly believed in the idea that the ultimate good is _sacrifice._

“A belief that you cling to even now because the idea that he left you for any other reason is painful to contemplate.” JH pauses a moment and the ensuing silence is deafening. Deacon closes his eyes, furious, hurt, and betrayed all over again. “The simple fact of the matter is that James was as flawed as any of us. He made a _mistake,_ he believed the lie and died because of it. There is no greater meaning to it than that, John. No nobility or heroism in it.”

Hot tears leak out of the corners of Deacon’s eyes as he whispers, “He didn’t — he didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I know,” JH replies sadly.

“Why didn’t he love me more than that _stupid_ purifier?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“He ruined _everything!_ I was happy in the vault. Almodovar wouldn’t have been Overseer forever, Amata would’ve—” He has to choke down a sob. “Jonas _died_ because of him and he never once mentioned that. He cared more for that fucking project than any of us.”

“Perhaps.”

“He _did._ He was so fucking single-minded about it, just ran into Vault 112 and into Braun’s waiting grasp for the sake of the fucking thing. We would have died in that place if not for you and he couldn’t even look at me after we got out. As if I was somehow to blame for the fucked-up shit Braun put us through, put _me_ through.

“And…and, just to top it all off, the fucking pièce de résistance of the whole thing, he went and killed himself for the sake of that goddamned purifier. Uselessly and pointlessly dying for that thing, and me, on the other side of the glass, _begging_ him not to.”

“Exactly,” JH says not unkindly. “Do you now see the problem in believing in James’ view of the world? You’ve known since you walked out of that vault that it didn’t make sense and yet you still try and defend it. It’s time to stop. There’s too much at stake.”

Deacon slumps on the couch, anger slowly leaving him. “You say that like it’s easy, like I haven’t been at odds with myself for the last ten years, like I can just flip a switch and be…whole.” He sort of laughs, Nick had it nailed all this time. 

“Not easy, no. Simple, perhaps, but not easy. I recognize how difficult this will be for you, and I by no means want to make light of it, but all the same, we are rapidly running out of time for you to resolve it.”

“Yeah, I get it. Brotherhood on their way.”

“I must sound like a broken record at this point,” JH says with a smile in his voice.

“Pretty much,” Deacon sighs, “but clearly, I need someone to bash me over the head multiple times before I get a concept and to be honest, I don’t know how well this particular head bash will take.”

“I’m willing to argue with you anytime if need be.”

Deacon snorts. “I bet.” They fall into silence for a time, and he considers heading into one of the temporary agent rooms to crash for real, but somehow this conversation doesn’t feel quite done. “How do I…? I can’t just…turn on a dime, JH. I wish I could. Life would be so much easier if that were the case, but I’m…I don’t know. Fucked.”

“Stubborn, I believe is the word you’re looking for.”

“Pigheaded, more like.”

“No,” JH disagrees, “that suggests an intractable unwillingness to change, and you aren’t that.”

“Ha! You’ve met me, right?”

“Yes,” JH deadpans and Deacon can’t tell if that’s a joke or if he’s missed _Deacon’s_ joke. After a couple seconds JH chuckles slightly. Joke. Then he sobers. “You always use language that’s derogatory towards yourself. You need to learn to be kinder to yourself. Again, not easy, but I’m sure if you ask for Mr. Valentine’s help, he’d be perfectly willing to aid you.”

“I love Nick, but his idea of helping is saying its okay to randomly destroy shit in anger.”

“And that’s a bad idea because?”

Deacon laughs incredulously. “Are you kidding me right now? You’re on his side?”

“You haven’t answered the question.”

He huffs a little and folds his arms. “Because…Nick was right when he said I was angry. I am angry. _So_ angry, and when I let go of that when I let that rule my behaviour…I don’t like what that makes me.”

JH considers this for a time before saying, “Perhaps the problem isn’t the letting go, but the holding on and holding on for so long that your anger bursts out in a way you can’t control. If you gave it an outlet you might be better off.”

“Yeah? Like I did with the Outcasts? So much better off.”

“That’s a poor example and you know it.”

“That’s a _prime_ example. I can’t remember a time when I was angrier than that.”

“Justifiably angry.”

“ _So_ justifiable that I murdered a two-dozen people,” Deacon replies with heavy sarcasm.

“Yes, that justifiable. If you expect me to pat you on the back for having a moral compass that berates you at every opportunity for getting vengeance for the atrocity committed against your family, I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed,” JH says with a hint annoyance in his voice. “They deserved every bit of wasteland justice you dispensed.”

“And here I thought you hated that idea: Wasteland Justice,” he says the last bit snidely, trying and failing not to sound like a petulant child.

“I dislike the chaos that society has fallen into, and yes, wasteland justice falls under that category, but until we can effect some change, I accept that it is the way of this world, and I don’t hold it against anyone for acting in accordance with the laws of this land.”

Deacon flings the blanket over himself, frowning. “Why do you have to be so damn reasonable all the time?”

“One of us has to be,” JH replies and Deacon can hear the stupid smirky smile in his voice.

“Ha, ha. Fine, walked into that one, but I still don’t agree that ‘wasteland justice’ absolves me of responsibility.”

“No? Or is that James’ view of the world making an appearance again? It’s not about absolution, it's about accepting what you did was not only right but your only choice in the situation.”

Deacon frowns. “My father’s view or not, what I did wasn’t right, by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Imagine this then, if you can, what would’ve happened if Sarah Lyons had agreed to give you the Outcasts responsible? Would you have agreed to incarceration under a laughable Brotherhood guard, or would you have demanded the gallows?”

He can’t help the way his hands clench at the idea they might have gotten off scot-free with killing Amata and the rest. “Gallows,” Deacon grits out. 

“And when Sarah denied you that you made your own.” JH sighs, almost sounding sad. “I don’t expect to take joy in their deaths, but you are not a monster for getting justice and vengeance for your family.”

Deacon slides sideways down the side of the couch so that he’s lying on his side and pulls the blanket over his head. That’s what you get for trying to argue with a frigging AI whose main function is data gathering and extrapolation. They end up knowing you better than you do and have no qualms about pointing out all the holes in your barely cogent rationalizations.

“Nick is nicer about it, at least,” Deacon grumbles to himself.

\- - - - -

The next morning, Deacon feels marginally more like himself as he eats breakfast with Ticon’s agents. If any heard JH and he arguing last night (a possibility that he’s trying not to freak out about—he can grow, see?), no one says anything. As soon as breakfast is done, Jolene drags him down to her workshop to show him her latest projects gleaned from the information that JH and she scrounged from the Switchboard servers. 

When she shoves a scrap of fabric no bigger 2 inches square into his hands with all the excitement of a new parent, Deacon will admit to being a little wrong-footed. He expected some sort of gadget wizardry, not a piece of patchwork. 

“Uh…what am I lookin’ at?”

“This is a scrap of ballistic polymer weave that I found at the Switchboard, and even better, Henry and I an intact chemical formula.”

Deacon hands back the patch. “Okay…? That sounds interesting.”

“Oh come on!” Jolene exclaims. “This is more than just interesting. This is the beginning of _bullet_ resistant clothing. If we can get this to work, you won’t have to wear that heavy steel plate vest all the time. This—” she waves the scrap in front of him, “—is what Courser coats are made of.”

“ _Oh._ ” Deacon takes the patch back for a closer look.

“See? More than just interesting. It’s a game changer. ‘Course, this isn’t exactly my area of expertise, so we’ll have to find a chemist or something like that. You don’t happen to know one, do you?”

“I used to,” Deacon replies thinking of Moira. She’d love something like this. “But in this area? Can’t say that I do.”

“That’s okay. I already sent a message to Dr. Amari. If any place has a chemist, it’d be Goodneighbour, right?” Deacon nods in agreement with that. “Oh, and we also put together a holotape for you,” Jolene adds and starts scrounging through her various drawers. 

“Hey, that reminds me, I need those holotapes of Nick’s. Finally got the last two.”

Jolene doesn’t stop rummaging to tell him to look for those tapes in an old shoe box stacked in the corner with a few other of Deacon’s miscellaneous things. 

“They’re inside the second box from the bottom, Deacon,” JH adds when he starts rummaging through the collection. With that direction, finding them is easy and as he comes up with the shoe box, Jolene makes a noise of triumph.

“Ha! Found you.” 

After he sits back down, she hands him the tape. On one side, written in black marker, is ‘For D.’ He pockets it. “So what is it?”

“A virus of sorts,” JH replies.

“We’ve been working on it for the last couple of months. When you or someone else manages to get to the Institute, plug that into a terminal and it’ll open a port for JH to access their network via the radio dishes outside.” 

Deacon raises his eyebrows, impressed. “So that solves one problem, at least.”

“Partially,” JH agrees. “Accessing their systems should be relatively simple compared with accessing the Switchboard servers. Jolene tells me that their defence against outside incursions is weak compared to that.”

“They think they’re _so_ safe. We’ll show them,” Jolene says fiercely.

“Indeed. However, transferring my program will take considerably more time. Which, given the alarm that initial break-in will no doubt cause, is troublesome.”

“You think they’ll resort to…manual measures to keep you out.” It’s not a question. 

“Wouldn’t you?”

Deacon considers for a moment. “Well, surely they wouldn’t do anything that would irreparably damage their system.” He looks to Jolene, “Right?” 

“I don’t think so, but in desperation, who can say? Obviously, you or whoever would need to make sure the upload stays on track.”

“I would feel more comfortable if it were, in fact, you, Deacon. I realize that it may not happen that way, as we have no means to see the future, but if the upload were forcibly terminated mid-way through, it would fracture my program. If I recovered, I would not be the same.”

JH says that so casually, but Deacon gets the impression that he’s anything but casual about the prospect of damaging himself beyond repair. Funny, how things between them seem to keep repeating, JH’s life is in his hands again, and his own will be in JH’s when the shit hits the fan in the Institute. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Deacon says with a laugh both grim and darkly amused. JH makes a noise of agreement.

Jolene changes the subject after that and Deacon hangs out with the two of them as Jolene chats about other projects she’s got going on and things of less importance until lunch time. At which point, JH shoos them out since Codsworth went to the trouble of making oven-baked mac and cheese with extra brahmin milk and cheese to make it doubly gooey and delicious. 

Deacon sings Codsworth praises as he digs in, making the Handy flutter in pride. He’ll admit that’s he’s really come to like Codsworth, the only Handy that gets that kind of consideration from him. It’ll be a shame when he heads back to Sanctuary; how Ticon will get on without him, Deacon has no idea. 

Conversation at the table is pretty light while the food is being eaten, but when they start clearing dishes, High Rise asks,

“So, how’re all the Quincy people holding up? You guys are in Diamond City, right?”

All the members of the house pause for a moment in their duties and look to him, all looking at him with various expressions of concern for the topic broach. All except HR, who just keeps cleaning the table while he waits for an answer.

“Yeah, the green jewel took ‘em in. And, okay? I guess? They lost their homes and town, but Diamond City has been good to them. Still, they’re anxious to have a settlement of their own again.”

“Any place in mind?” HR asks.

“Preston, one of the Minutemen, thinks a pre-war neighbourhood called Sanctuary Hills would be a good place to settle, and I have no objections.”

_Well,_ Deacon thinks darkly, _except for the fact that he got that suggestion from Mama Murphey and her ‘sight’._

“What about, you, Jeeves?” Deacon asks, shoving that thought aside as he hands the leftover mac and cheese to Codsworth.

“That sounds like a fine idea, sir. Breathe a bit of life into the old place. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to being alone again. Some company while I wait for Miss Nora would be most welcome.”

There’s no questioning of who Nora is, so Deacon can only assume that somewhere along the line, Codsworth talked about the vault dweller on ice. He can’t even recall if he told Codsworth not to, and if he didn’t, he couldn’t very well blame the robot for wanting to talk about a beloved family member. Honestly, at this point, Deacon can hardly keep straight who knows what about anything he’s currently doing, so it’s just as well.

“Glad to have your stamp of approval, pal. Anyways, settling them isn’t really that big of a problem. Ellie will make sure they have a bunch of supplies to get started in return for cheap trade for the next few years, and the roads aren’t that bad as long as we avoid both Lexington and Concord.

“The real problem is that as of right now, there are only ten Minutemen left in the whole Commonwealth. We lost eight at Quincy, and another four decided that after that shitshow they couldn’t be Minutemen anymore. Which is understandable, but what the hell am I supposed to do with ten Minutemen? I might as well have none.”

“That’s a bit pessimistic, Dee.” Parade says, “Anything more than nothing has got be good.”

“Yeah, I mean, would it be better to have 50? Sure, but you gotta start somewhere,” Jolene seconds.

“But of those ten, I might get five, four? who stay as Minutemen and decide not to join the Quincy survivors as part of Sanctuary Hill’s new defence. I mean, sure, in five years I could get together a decent sized force, but it’s already _May._ The Brotherhood is here. Time is _so_ short.” Deacon sighs as he takes a seat at the table again. He was going to dishes but Codsworth shooed him away and they both rejoin the group. “I might have six months, at the most, and I can’t get a reasonably sized force together in that time. I literally do not have the manpower.”

“Not now, but that’s why you recruit,” Uncle says, “I know the Minutemen aren’t that big’a name anymore, but surely there are some people out there that might wanna join.”

“And how many of those ‘mights’ will want to join when they realize that they aren’t going to get paid for a year or more, that we can’t guarantee meals, that there’s nowhere to call home so no permanent bed? That is going to weed out potential recruits in a damn hurry.” Deacon grimly laughs. “I bet Preston would be the only one to join under that kind of circumstance outta sheer do-gooder stubbornness. Everyone else will expect, and should expect, to get compensated, and subsequently decide not to join, which will make it nigh on impossible to get the numbers to get the caps to get the home to grow the meals.”

Silence descends on the group as they all consider what Deacon has been trying to work out for the last month. If they see something he hasn’t, then great because the whole thing seems to be an impossible ouroboros of a problem. 

“Maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way,” High Rise says after a moment, choosing his words carefully like he’s still trying to make whatever idea he has come together in his own mind. “I’ve read a coupla history books, been to the museum in Concord, hell, I’ve even walked the Freedom Trail before I was a member of our esteem organization, and the way that I understand it, the Minutemen of old weren’t some group of soldiers. Right?”

Deacon nods. 

“They were just regular folks with guns that were self-trained and could be ready ‘at a minute's notice’; people from various towns and settlements that organized themselves in a pretty powerful arm of the colonial army. Now, these days things are a _bit_ different, but I don’t see why you can’t…like get volunteers from major settlements and train them there and they stay in their own homes and keep doing their day jobs and when needed you send out a call and bam! Minutemen defence.

“Not that you should stop lookin’ for more permanent members, but that could help with numbers in the short term and then you get more people talkin’ ‘bout you, then you could get more recognition and caps and donations and members and even that home you keep talkin’ ‘bout.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Parade says and claps High Rise on the back. “That’s why you’re the boss,” and HR laughs.

“There’s so much potential in that,” Callie agrees. 

“‘Course, you have to get people to agree to take on that kinda responsibility. That might be difficult,” Drummer Boy adds.

“Well if anyone can smooth talk a bunch of people into helping, it’d be Deacon,” Jolene replies with a grin.

“Uh…I think y’all are overestimating my abilities,” Deacon says. 

“Or perhaps you’re underestimating them,” JH says, and Deacon shoots a look at his camera. 

“In any case,” Deacon continues, “since I don’t have a plan of my own, HR’s is as good as any, better even since it actually makes sense.”

“I could talk with Stockton, see if we couldn’t get him to help influence a few people down in Bunker Hill,” High Rise says, “and you already got a hell of an in with Diamond City, so the only real problem will be Goodneighbour, but Amari might know some people who’d be willing to help.”

“I have the dubious privilege of knowing the mayor of Goodneighbour as well, so it might not be that big of a problem. Maybe. If I play my cards right.”

“This plan is practically falling together on its own, that’s how good of an idea it is,” Jolene says excitedly and Deacon can’t argue with that.

The next morning Deacon heads back to Diamond City. He meant to leave the evening before, but he was having such a good time hanging out with the agents at Ticon and discussing the various ways he should approach his Minutemen problem that the hour got away from him and by the time the idea of leaving resurfaced in his mind, it was far too late to realistically set out for the Great Green Jewel. 

Somehow, he always forgets how much of a home Ticon is to him since finding a place in Diamond City with Nick until he actually drags his sorry ass back to that safehouse and remembers that its as much of a home as the agency is, as his vault was. 

It’s mid-morning when he rolls through the gates, tossing a nod or two at the guards on duty. He's become, once again, a familiar face in this place and for the first time he can recall, that doesn’t actually make him want to crawl out of his skin. It’s a strange sensation. Even the anger he felt before doesn’t return the same way, more of an annoyance that he can deal with, that he let Nick help him with. 

JH seems to be the only one capable of talking sense into him, sense that Nick has said to him before, but somehow his brain just rebels against the idea that Nick might actually know what he’s talking about. Probably because he still has a distance with Nick, Nick still doesn’t know everything, not the way that JH does, and if he could just get the courage to let Nick in that last little bit, he could take Nick seriously, instead of fighting with JH at ungodly hours of the morning. 

Besides, after all this time, Nick deserves that from him.

The smell of food in the market peaks his hunger, even though he had a few leftovers earlier in the morning before leaving Ticon. Deacon heads to Francine’s bakery for a treat before heading to the agency. 

The last of the scone is gone by the time he pushes open Nick’s door, and since both Nick and Leslie are dealing with a client, it’s probably best that he didn’t burst in with a mouth full of delicious, delicious scone. Nick’s face lights when he sees Deacon and it makes something warm and soft blossom in his chest, he not sure he’ll ever get tired of seeing that reaction. Even if he doesn’t always feel he deserves it. 

“Just give us a minute, kid,” Nick says to him as Deacon closes the door, and Deacon nods before he heads to the private area behind the cinderblock wall. 

He catches snippets of the closing conversation, but Deacon is more wrapped up in what he’s going to say to Nick, _how_ he’s going to say it, and when. Now that he’s decided he should spill about everything, Deacon is both impatient to do it and terrified of it actually happening. He knows himself well enough that if he can stall, he will, well into perpetuity. 

To distract himself, Deacon pulls off his gear. Hanging his things on the coat rack, setting his heavy vest down on the floor, and placing the satchel of holotapes down on the dresser before stretching the road wariness out of his muscles. He’s gotten too soft hanging around Diamond City this last month.

“Didn’t expect a show,” Nick says from somewhere behind him, “Not that I’m complainin’.”

“So that was just a quaint observation?” Deacon asks, turning around. Nick’s leaning against the cinderblock wall that separates the to halves of the agency.

“Wouldn’t call what you do to my beleaguered coolant pump quaint, Jack, but yeah.” 

So, Leslie has left the building. Nick wouldn’t dare call him that if Les were still kicking around. 

“Early lunch for the secretary?” 

Nick hums an affirmative. “How’d it go?”

Deacon can’t help the noise that escapes him, not quite a sigh but something annoyed definitely. “JH knows just where to poke and prod. I’d hate him if he weren’t right all the time.”

Nick pushes off the wall and moves closer. “Care to elaborate?”

“I…yeah, actually. I think it’s time. I mean, I could just pretend and run away forever, but then I’d have to leave the Commonwealth and at this point, that’s practically an impossibility.”

Nick’s eyebrows raise in surprise and he stops dead in his tracks. For all the times Nick has asked for Deacon to give a little more of himself, he didn’t actually expect to get anything other than a rebuffed, and yet, he keeps _asking._ The man’s patience knows no bounds.

“But here’s the problem,” Deacon continues, and for a second, Nick’s face morphs back into his regular expression, he expects this to be the moment when Deacon rebuffs him. _Ha, jokes on you pal. This time, I mean it._ “I have no idea how much you know, so in an effort to avoid rehashing a subject, I give you carte blanche to ask whatever questions you want, and I will answer them to best of my abilities.”

Nick goes back to surprised in the blink of an eye. He stares at Deacon, uncertain. “Are you…serious, kid?”

“As a deathclaw attack.”

Nick still stares at him, wavering. 

“See, I realized something when I was talkin’ with JH. He knows everything about me and because of that, when he tells me shit that I don’t wanna hear, I end up listening to him (after a fight) because…he’s got all the pieces, ya know? He sees it all. Even though the things that he says to me are almost exactly the kind of things you’ve already said me, but I don’t take _you_ seriously because I’ve, like, withheld the last pieces, and it… shouldn’t be like that. With us.”

Deacon closes the distance between them and lays a hand on Nick’s arm. “I know that this isn’t gonna be happy fun times because the past is like my _least_ favourite topic, but we’re partners, Nick. In every sense of the word, and you deserve to be let in that last little bit, more importantly, I want you in.”

“Jack…” Nick breaths, overwhelmed. 

“Took me long enough, right?”

Nick huff a breath of laughter. “Yeah, as annoyin’ as it was, but I woulda waited forever for you.”

“Surprise! You don’t have to. For just five easy payments of $19.99 you can have it all!”

“Jokes on you then, ‘cause I already had it all. I have you.”

Deacon considers continuing to make light of the situation, but he’d rather bask in the saccharine sentimentality of that last statement. So, he does. 

They end up on the couch that used to occupy the spot that Nick’s bed used to back when Ellie still lived in the agency. He sits close to Nick, but not close enough to touch. It’ll be easier to talk if he can just power through it rather than having Nick try to comfort him. He appreciates where that comes from, but its better for him if he gets it out first before the comfort comes. It’s easier to feel worthy of it then.

And Nick being Nick, goes for the jugular first question out. “The Outcasts, kid. What did they do to you to warrant…that.” 

Deacon sighs and wishes they could have built up to this, but he supposes that by now, Nick has most of the picture figured out. He wouldn’t be much of a detective if he didn’t, so the questions he’s going to ask are things that either aren't clear or there’s too much of a variation in versions for him to believe anything but the source.

So he starts back a bit and explains that after the Brotherhood and the people he had gathered to the cause defeated the Enclave forces at the Purifier and then again at Raven Rock (here Nick nods, indicating that he’s heard this part of the tale from someone already), glossing over the part where he almost died at the Purifier because that’ll just veer the whole conversation off, that he returned to Raven Rock, while the Brotherhood were busy preparing for their strike on Adams Air Force Base.

“I had this idea of what kinda person Eden was after listening to him talk on the radio for months, and I just couldn’t reconcile that…naïve vision with reality. I wanted Eden to be the person I thought he was, but I also knew that he wasn’t and that I couldn’t let the Brotherhood get a hold of him.”

“Is Henry that person now?” Nick asks, voice carefully neutral. Huh. Deacon can’t remember actually making that connection out loud, but again, he is dealing with a detective. 

“Yes and no? I mean, that idea was based on a public image that was carefully crafted to appear human, but Eden wasn’t human, and neither is JH, so he’ll always be…different in some ways than a human, but I do trust him. He’s not the same person he was.”

Deacon continues with his story, giving a synopsis of that conversation in the wreck of Raven Rock, that he’d meant to destroy Eden before the Brotherhood arrived to pick through the crumbling ruin, he how he learned that it was Eden that rescued him from Braun’s clutches and that the Enclave had kept his father’s body as a peace offering.

“Before telling me all that, Eden asked that I spare his life. Take a copy of his core programming on a holotape.”

“The one you used to keep in your pocket all the time,” Nick says, putting the pieces together rapidly, and Deacon nods. “I had wondered what happened to it.”

“I plugged it in.”

“So, have you decided if its gonna save the Wasteland or destroy it?”

Deacon shrugs. “I won’t really know until it happens, will I? But I’m optimistic.”

After he had the modified holotape in his hands and the remaining programming was purged from the ZAX computer, Deacon knew he had to hide the tape. He might fool the Brotherhood for a while, under the assumption that an Enclave soldier wiped the system before the Brotherhood scribes could get there, but he knew that eventually, they would come to the conclusion that he might have had something to do with it. 

He did consider for a time about hiding it in the deactivated bomb in Megaton, but after seeing the town again with all its people, Deacon couldn't risk the Brotherhood tampering with the bomb and causing it to go off in their efforts to find the tape. So, in the end, he decided to give it to Amata to hide. After all, no one could get into a vault if the residents didn’t want them in; that’s what he thought anyway. Deacon hadn’t counted on the Outcasts ability to get into places they weren’t welcome, nor had he considered that after Sarah Lyons confronted him about the missing data that she would go so far as to sick the Outcasts on his vault. 

“I thought after everything we’d been through together, that Sarah would trust me about the data,” Deacon says, anger dampened somewhat by time. “But, she was more concerned with bringing the two halves of the Brotherhood together rather than a few vault dwellers.

“I hated her for it. Still do. I thought I meant more than just a bed warmer. But to be fair, she was my pathetic attempt at a replacement for Amata, so I suppose she was just as cut by me as I was by her.”

Funny how now that he talks about it, he sees her side of the story somewhat. Not that he’s any less angry about it, but he can understand how she must have felt when she realized that Deacon didn’t care for her the same way she cared for him. 

“So…these Outcasts killed Amata?”

“They killed everyone in my vault, Amata included.” He takes a moment swallow through the grief that brings up. “Probably first since she was Overseer.”

Nick touches his arm for a moment as he says, “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Then, Deacon curls in on himself as he says, “Ya know, I’m angry at her too. For not giving it up. I coulda done something about that, but I couldn’t keep them from killing her. Mostly, I’m angry at me for giving it to her in the first place.”

“You couldn’t’ve foreseen that, kid. It’s not your fault. Hindsight is always 20/20.”

“Maybe, but what came after was totally in my hands to control.”

And so here they are. At the crux of it all. The reason he left. The reason he couldn’t stand to look at his face in the mirror anymore. The reason why it was easier to spin a few dozen lies in place of one terrible truth. 

He tells Nick about finding the vault, about having to see his whole family dead, shot in the back while running, a few with discarded 10mm pistols by their sides and holes burnt in their chests from laser fire, and about finding Amata and holding her cold body and crying. Even Andy, their Mr. Handy, was dead, so he had to haul all their bodies to the incinerator himself. 

That gave him a lot of time to think and stew in his rage. 

When he realized that they hadn’t even got what they wanted he was furious, beyond even rage. He both cold and calculating with it, and on fire with the need to destroy everything, it was like no other emotions existed in the world, had existed, or would exist. 

“I scared Sarah that day I went to see her, demanding justice. Hell, I scared the whole damn Citadel and it was full of Brotherhood soldiers in power armour with Gatling lasers and me in crappy leather armour with only a cloak of righteous fury to protect me.”

“I believe it.”

“I wish you didn’t.”

Nick doesn’t respond to that, just touches Deacon’s arm again to reassure him that it doesn’t matter. Not to him. Deacon wishes he could feel like that. Even after everything that JH said to him and made him acknowledge. Knowing that he was in the right and feeling that are so very different. 

“I didn’t get what I wanted from her, what I thought I should’ve gotten. Sarah said she’d punish the Outcasts responsible for the slaughter if I gave her the data—the holotape. I refused. I could only imagine what sort of fresh hell they would bring on the Capital if they got a hold of Eden’s program. If Eden’s program got a hold of _them._ ”

When he left the Citadel, he was already planning how to lure the Outcasts to him to kill them. It’s hard to say that aloud, that he could be so calculatingly cruel, but it’s the truth. He couldn’t assault their base in the Capital, Fort Independence, without dying in a spectacular fashion (at this time, the Outcasts still hadn’t decided to rejoin the Brotherhood, even though the two were tentatively working together on a few projects, most notably, Adams Air Force Base), so he had to lay a trap and ambush them. 

That’s how they ended up in Megaton. 

“I just had to send out a few rumours about the data being stashed in a lockbox in Megaton, and make sure that few people saw me out of town. The Outcasts couldn’t resist the opportunity. The rest you saw.”

Nick is quiet for a moment after the story and Deacon is certain that more than an hour has passed. He wonders if Leslie is supposed to be back sometime this afternoon. 

“So, were they all responsible? The ones you…went after.”

“Some were, but if you want numbers, I don’t have them. If they had the Outcast orange on their armour, I killed them. It didn’t matter then if they were responsible or not.” 

Nick sighs. “Well, I can’t say I’m glad that you did that, kid. ‘Specially seein’ as how you’re still dealin’ with the effects of it.”

“Ya, well, join the club.”

Nick gives him a look before he shifts closer. “Jack, I don’t mean it like that. I don't want people to have to do things like that to get justice. I hate that you had to do it.”

“It’s kinda funny, but JH almost said the exact same thing about this subject. And he actually agreed with you about the destroyin’ random shit thing because of basically the same reasons.”

“Go figure.”

“So, what else do you want to know?”

Nick asks some more questions about Braun; he seems incapable of letting that particular dog lie. Deacon would be annoyed if he wasn’t certain that something horrible was going to eventually happen on that front, but he does hate having to think about Vault 112. Then he asks, much to Deacon’s amusement/amazement that he remembered the offhand comment, about how Lincoln got his head back. 

And somehow because of that story, which among the stories Deacon has is a good one and one he doesn’t mind sharing, Deacon starts remembering funny things that happened or things that were interesting and don't have that cloud of Brotherhood or Enclave hanging over them. Like Canterbury Commons, Oasis, Sierra and her Nuka Cola museum, or that med-x trip of an adventure at Point Lookout. 

Just talking about a story, begets another story, and they all rush to come out. 

It isn’t until his stomach is grumbling that Deacon realizes how long he’s been talking. Uninterrupted. Leslie hasn’t returned and Nick still grinning about the talking vault boy bobbleheads that Deacon hallucinated while on that swamp drug. He won’t be grinning when Deacon tells him that the riverboat operator took out a chunk of his brain. 

Maybe he’ll just leave that part out. 

\- - - - -

He’s late getting going the next morning, even though he has a mind to get started on dealing with the Minutemen problem and getting the former Quincy residents rehomed because he’s tired from the walk and Nick spent a large portion of the night fucking him into sweet, sweet oblivion. But when he finally does get up and get some breakfast into him, he heads out to the temporary Minutemen barracks to talk with Preston. 

Who, it turns out, isn’t there. Davis is though, and she directs him to the DCS barracks. 

“He said he wanted to talk to Captain Nitti about Garrett getting night duty for the last two weeks.”

Deacon frowns. “That’s odd. I thought it was a four on, three off, kinda thing.”

She nods. "The Cap wasn’t sure if it was an oversight or somethin’ else. I think someone mighta blabbed about Garrett’s past…uh, affiliations.”

“Great.” Deacon sighs. “Where’s Garrett now?

“Sleepin’. Probably will be until after noon.”

“So, why wasn’t I let in on this sooner?”

Davis shrugs. “Cap thought you had enough to worry about.”

Deacon starts shaking his head, making a noise of disagreement. “Nope, that’s not the way this works. Either I’m boss and I know everything, or I’m not and you guys figure this out for yourselves, but you can’t pick and choose what I’m told.”

“I know. That’s why I’m tellin’ you now.”

“You shoulda told me last week.”

“Yeah, well…it’s hard to go against the Captain. He’s…the Cap.”

“I understand, but from now on…”

“You’ll be in the loop, Sir.”

Deacon nods in acceptance of that. “Come on, let’s got to the barracks, I need to talk to the two of you.”

Deacon’s only ever been inside the DCS barracks a couple of times back when he was living in Diamond City and still going by Rhett. On both occasions, it was to bail Piper out on MacDonough’s trumped up ‘disturbing the peace’ charges that he liked to let others abuse for the sole purpose of shutting Piper up for a couple of days at a time. 

Since he’s been removed from the mayoral chair, Piper hasn’t seen the inside of the DCS cells. 

And since he’s only ever been in here to bail Piper out, Deacon isn’t sure where Nitti’s office might be. He has to ask one of the off-duty guards. With the simple directions in hand, Deacon finds the office no problem, and through the little window, Deacon can see Preston and Nitti speaking. It isn’t an argument, but it's not real friendly.

Deacon shoves the door open and says, “What gives with my invite?”

Both Nitti and Preston look at him with varying level of surprise. 

“Uh, Sir,” Preston starts and Deacon holds up a hand to stop him. 

“I think you and I have had a bit of a misunderstanding and I’ll take that blame for that, but before we get to that, let me handle this. Please wait outside with Lieutenant Davis, Captain, while I have a word with Captain Nitti.”

Preston draws breath to speak before changing his mind about that and simply nods, stepping outside the small room. He closes the door behind him and Deacon turns to Nitti. 

“Captain, a recent scheduling problem has come to my attention concerning Sergeant Asif.”

Nitti eyes him wearily. “Whatever it is your about to accuse me of is true, so lets just cut to the chase.”

“How did you find out?”

“One of my men was talking with a Quincy resident at the Dugout, trading gossip. That was one of the tidbits.” Nitti sighs. “I didn’t want to, but once word got around, my hands were tied. It seemed like the least amount of action I could take an not alienate what’s left of your group.”

“He can’t keep handling that many night shifts in a row. You know that.”

“If he stood up for himself, I might have had a way out of this, but your Sergeant won’t and that only condemns him in the eyes of the others.”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Probably thinks it’s an acceptable punishment, but I have few enough people. This can’t keep going on.”

“Well, I suggest you throw a fit and talk to the mayor. She’s practical enough to tell me to stop, even if she doesn’t necessarily forgive.”

“It’s more important for you to save face in front of your guards than it is for you to do the right thing?" Deacon asks, frowning. "Garrett’s already paid for his crime, did hard labour out in Quincy before being _asked_ to join the Minutemen. Don’t put his absolution on Ellie.”

Nitti crosses his arms. “They like her. They’ll follow her lead.”

Times like this he can’t read Nitti. Is he still working for the Institute and playing them all? Or is he just doing what he thinks is best for Diamond City and they just view those things so differently that Deacon can’t understand his methods? 

“Find a replacement for Garrett tonight, I need him tomorrow and for the next while.”

Nitti nods. 

Deacon leaves, closing the door behind him and gesturing for Preston and Davis to follow. When they step out of the barracks, Preston says, 

“Sorry.”

“I’m not much of a leader if you can’t trust me with this stuff.”

“It’s not that, it’s just—”

“I heard, you thought I had enough to deal with. And ya know what, I do, but you guys are in that mix, so it’s all part and parcel. Don’t leave me outta loop again, or you’ll have to find yourself another General.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Now, let’s talk about the brain wave a friend of mine had.”

It doesn’t take long to explain High Rise’s idea of a reserve Minutemen force that doesn’t quit their day jobs to be apart of the main force of the Minutemen. It’s useful to keep their numbers less exact when it comes to the Brotherhood, though they likely won’t be able to hide effectively from the Institute, but one problem at a time. 

Davis is enthusiastically on-board, and she already knows of a few people in Diamond City that want to help, but don’t want to leave their lives in town behind. Perfect candidates. They’ll have to talk with Ellie too, just to get her blessing, but doubts she’ll be against the idea of having more protection for the city. 

However, Preston is less excited. He doesn’t disagree with the plan, and even offers a few ideas for its execution, but Deacon figured he’d be the most pumped by the plan to start restoring the Minutemen. Course, now that he thinks about it, Preston has been down ever since they fled from Quincy. Not surprising, but all the more reason to get out of Diamond City and start rebuilding. 

He asks Davis to start gathering supplies for a recon mission up to Sanctuary Hills. Probably take them about four days give or take, so he asks her to get supplies for five, just in case something happens. He wants to leave tomorrow and start figuring out the best route to lead the Quincy survivors and to see just how much work they have to do to the old neighbourhood to make it liveable. They’ve got the rest of the summer and fall to prepare for winter, and the quicker they get started, the better.

While she does that, with Garrett’s help when he gets up, Deacon takes Preston up to see Ellie. He wants to drop a bug in her ear about the reserve Minutemen volunteers and ask her to think about it while they’re gone.

As he suspected, Ellie has no problem with them looking for volunteers for a more traditional Minutemen force. They’ll have to figure out a training regimen after they get Sanctuary settled, but hopefully, they’ll get working on that front by June. And in talking with her about it, and hearing her perspective gives Deacon a few more ideas to run with and has the double effect of cheering Preston up somewhat. 

They set out early the next morning for Goodneighbour, to have a word with Hancock and to leave a few feelers for anyone who might be interested in volunteering. Deacon asks Davis and Garrett to track down MacCready, so they can all leave together in an hour or so for Sanctuary Hills via Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Concord.

Hancock laughs when Deacon pitches his idea. Not that he really expected anything different, but once Hancock still his scratchy laughter and realizes that Deacon and Preston are serious, he gives the idea serious thought.

“More trained people with guns doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but I can’t have anyone thinkin’ they can just waltz in and take over if they sound a call for the Minutemen.”

“It wouldn’t be like that,” Preston says, voice neutral and shoulders stiff. That comment hits a little too close to home. “We don’t work like that, and anyone who has ideas of taking our cause and perverting it like that won’t make it past muster.”

Hancock raises a tattered brow. “No offence brother, but you don’t exactly look like the kinda guy who can spot a con.”

“But I can,” Deacon says, and Hancock tosses him a knowing smirk.

Hancock thinks for a moment longer before turning to Fahrenheit. “Whadda you think?”

“The kind of people that might go for this and make it, aren’t the sort to upset the status quo as long we don’t give ‘em cause to revolt. Which could be said of any resident of this town.” She gives Hancock a ghost of a smile. “Besides, given the history ‘round here, I don’t think a few Minutemen would be out of place. Give the Shroud a break every now and again.”

“And don’t he need it,” Hancock replies with a laugh. “Alright, Dee, you got my blessin’. I’d be interested in seein’ what your Minutemen are capable of when you get set up. I need a night or three off every now and again too.”

With that done, Deacon and Preston head to the Rex and then the market to leave a few open invitations with a couple of town gossips to percolate through the settlement while they continue to Bunker Hill. 

As they approach the settlement, MacCready gets a little wary. 

“Not sure I should be seen ‘round here,” Mac says after darting looks at the buildings around them. “Don’t need a repeat performance of GreeneTech.”

“You think they’ll try somethin’ with the five of us?” Deacon asks even though he already knows the answer. Better that Mac talks to keep him from getting too jumpy.

“Might.”

“Haven’t had a chance to change my face, so I’m just as likely to be recognized as you. We’re probably better off in the group.”

MacCready’s expression doesn’t lighten. “Maybe.”

“Who are we keeping an eye out for?” Preston asks.

“Gunners,” Deacon says and suddenly MacCready isn’t the only one holding his gun tighter 

They make it to Bunker Hill without incident, though whether that’s luck or something else, he can’t be sure. 

There’s less of a clear hierarchy of power in this settlement, so Deacon tells Preston and Davis to go to the bar in town and talk with the bartender and his son. Then he asks MacCready and Garrett to keep an eye out for Gunners or trouble that might come their way via any raiders that might have been given caps as lookouts. Lastly, Deacon goes to talk with Old Man Stockton.

As far as influential people in town go, he’s one of the top, along with most of the more established traders. 

Stockton is wary at first, as most are in town. (That’s what you get for trading openly with raiders.) It’s a harder sell than it was in Diamond City or Goodneighbour, but Stockton seems to warm to the idea of having extra aid if raiders or the Gunners decide that trading isn’t quite enough for them. However, convincing Stockton is only part of it, but after coming to a tentative agreement, Stockton says he’ll pass the idea by the others. 

After that, Deacon heads to the bar, grabbing Garrett and MacCready on the way. They sit and have a quick meal, being that it’s nearly noon, before heading out again. 

Deacon leads them on a bit of weird weaving path through Cambridge to avoid GreeneTech, Ticonderoga, and Augusta, while ending up on the west side of Cambridge before they start north toward Lexington. That part of the road will be the safest path for them to take with the Quincy refugees since it's kept pretty clear by agents coming and going from the Switchboard, and it will be easier to avoid the main area of Concord if they travel up the west side of that town. 

He still expects to do a bit of clearing in Concord, but hopefully, it’ll be minimal, and perhaps by travelling that part of the journey at night with the refugees, they can avoid any raiders that might repopulate the town in the meantime. The biggest thing to worry about is whether Sanctuary Hills is a safe place to land after they go through all that. 

They reach the outskirts of Lexington in the late afternoon and keep to the scrub on the other side of the wrecked train to keep out of the sight of the old Corvega plant. It’d be nice if raiders hadn’t yet taken over the plant again since he and MacCready cleared it over a month ago, but its best not to take any chances with getting seen. 

Once they make it far enough past the plant, they stop for some recon. MacCready climbs up onto the top of an open car to get a better view of the area as he checks for any pressing dangers, while Davis and Garrett, check the scrub around them for any yao guai or mole rat burrows. Preston and Deacon lie down in the same car Mac climbed and watch for movement in Lexington, Preston through a pair of binoculars he keeps on him and Deacon pointing out any movement that should be examined more closely. 

At first, it goes smoothly. There doesn’t seem to be anything but ferals wandering down the streets of Lexington, nearer to the old plant where the radiation is strongest. Then MacCready swears under his breath and leans down the side of the car, hat in one hand. 

“10 o’clock, by the place with the donut,” he says to Deacon and Preston, “We got a problem.”

Preston swings his binoculars in that direction and Deacon guesses that MacCready caught sight of an agent or two going into the Slocum’s Joe. He can probably explain that away. Or so he figures until Preston swears quietly and passes the binoculars over. 

“I’m gonna get Davis and Asif,” he says quietly and backs out of the car, keeping low.

A spike of panic lances through Deacon as he watches Preston leave; then looks up to where Mac is hanging over the edge of the car. 

“You are the _worst_ trouble magnet,” is all MacCready says before hauling himself back up. Then, after a moment of shuffling, “I can probably take out three of them from here, but who knows how many more are inside.”

With the greatest trepidation, Deacon raises the binoculars and focuses in on the Slocum’s Joe. 

The binoculars drop with a clatter to the worn wooden deck of the train car as Deacon scrambles out of the opening and down the slop toward Lexington, MacCready hissing at him as he disappears into the tall grass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've made it! Can you believe it? One last chapter in this fic left. The one we've all been waiting for: The Fall of the Switchboard.


End file.
